Looksmart, the pay per click directory
Founded in 1995, Looksmart has
since then become one of the three largest website directories, the two
others being ODP
and Yahoo. While
the Looksmart site does not draw as many visitors as Yahoo, nor does its
data have as many users as ODP's, the directory has several powerful
partners that make being listed in it seem attractive. To mention a few of
them, MSN, Mamma, Altavista and Dogpile all use Looksmart's data somewhere
on their pages or search results. Also, it appears that at least Altavista
gives a ranking boost to sites that are present in Looksmart's database.
Most webmasters can appreciate Looksmart's partnerships with Mamma, AV
and Dogpile, but the reason why they are really drawn to submit to the
directory is MSN. Microsoft's portal displays sites that are listed at
Looksmart fairly prominently in its search results. Because the MSN site
is very popular and because it is the default search engine of Internet
Explorer, being well-ranked in it for the right keywords can produce
significant amounts of traffic.
Pay per click vs. a free lunch?
In April 2002, Looksmart drastically changed its submission process. It
abandoned the previous program, under which a site could pay $299/$149 to
get reviewed and if found satisfactory, would be added to the directory.
In its place, Looksmart introduced a new scheme named LookListings Small
Business.
The new model is based on the pay per click concept and the prices have
been adjusted accordingly. The submission fee has been dropped to $49.
This only purchases you a review and a promise that if your site meets the
Looksmart Listing Guidelines, you'll be accepted into the directory.
Should your site be rejected, you will not get a refund. Also, unlike
the Overture $50 setup fee, this $49 will not buy you any click-throughs.
In short, it gets you in the door, but that is all.
After your submission is approved, you'll need to make a minimum
initial deposit of $150. This fee is refundable and also fully applicable
to clicks. The clicks have a flat price of 15 cents, so you won't be able
to bid any more or less than that amount per click. Sites receiving less
than 100 clicks/month will be charged the minimum monthly spend of $15.
In Overture's pay per click search engine, the ranking of sites is
determined by who pays the highest price. Since all clicks cost $0.15 at
Looksmart, it naturally can't rank sites in the same way. Instead, it uses
a ranking algorithm that is apparently based on the description, title,
category and keywords you submit when creating your account. As in regular
search engines and directories, there is no guarantee that you'll rank
anywhere near the top for the keywords you are targeting.
Purely commercial sites that sell merchandise or services but have very
little unique content must choose between two options. Either they
participate in the pay per click program, or they aren't included at all.
Later we'll discuss which of these two choices would be the better one,
but for now, let's forget that issue. Instead, let's tackle another
difficult question first.
There are many sites out there that provide excellent, valuable content
to Internet surfers. Some of them might have a banner ad or two so that
the webmaster doesn't have to worry about how to be able to pay the
hosting fees, while others are completely ad free. What about these sites?
Are their owners expected to simply pay $0.15 per click, even while they
can hardly afford to?
Thank God, the answer is no. There is a back door you can use and if
you're lucky, you'll get in for free and be listed in the directory
exactly the same way as those paying for the traffic are. It is not a
secret, but for obvious reasons, Looksmart does not want to promote the
possibility too much. The service is called...
Zeal
Looksmart acquired Zeal in October
2000 and integrated it into the Looksmart directory in August of 2001. The
reason why Looksmart bought Zeal was that because of its high fees, most
sites that submit to Looksmart are very commercial and focused on selling
products instead of providing information. Zeal ensures that the Looksmart
directory remains a source for useful information instead of turning into
the yellow pages of the Internet.
Interestingly enough, Zeal is quite similar to the non-commercial Open
Directory Project. Both use volunteers to review submitted sites and
neither of the two charges a fee for submissions made to them. However,
there are a few obvious differences which we shall now investigate.
First, Zeal does not allow purely commercial sites to be submitted into
it. Zeal's definition of what is commercial and what is not is somewhat
vague, so rather than explaining it to you in my own words, here's what their
own guidelines have to say about the subject. In a nutshell, "If
the primary purpose of a site is to generate revenue or promote the sale
of goods or services online or offline, then it is considered
commercial (and thus can't be submitted to Zeal)".
The reason behind this rule is that if commercial sites were allowed to
submit for free via Zeal, after a while nobody would be interested in
Looksmart's pay per click program. Thus, if your site is 100% commercial,
you can forget about entering Looksmart via Zeal.
The second difference is that while ODP accepts a wide variety of
sites, Zeal (and Looksmart) refuse sites that contain adult material.
Persons running such sites should submit their sites to ODP and perhaps
Yahoo instead of wasting their time with Looksmart.
Submitting to Zeal
Provided that your site is in compliance with Zeal's rules, you should
submit to it instead of spending your money on Looksmart. While "Boost your traffic
with website directories" will give you most of the information you
need in order to properly submit to Zeal, here's a brief overview on what
exactly you need to do to get accepted:
First, you will have to register yourself as a
Zealot. A slightly annoying step, but at least it doesn't cost
anything. After you've done that, you'll also need to pass the "Member
Quiz" before you can start the actual submitting process.
The MQ is a multiple choice test, but it isn't too easy. To pass it,
open up Zeal's
guidelines in another window and search the correct answers to the
questions from there. Don't rush or try to guess, just accept that it is
going to take a while and be patient.
Having achieved a MQ of 90 or more, which means that you answered at
least 18 of the 20 questions correctly, you can finally move on. Find a
suitable category for your site, but remember to check that the category
is "open". Some parts of the Zeal directory are "sealed off" and you can't
submit to them even if your site would fit in perfectly. If you encounter
a situation where the best category of your site is labeled "commercial"
and thus unavailable, simply find the most relevant category that is not
commercial and submit to it.
The actual submission process is fairly simple, but if you need help,
check out this series of
screenshots I took while preparing this article. They are quite large
and might take a (long) while to load on a slow connection, but will make
submitting a piece of cake.
The MSN connection
As I mentioned in the beginning, Looksmart's partnership with MSN is
the main reason the directory is so important. That is why before you
submit to Zeal/Looksmart, you must ensure that you will get the maximum
amount of visibility at MSN.
First, choose
some keywords that are related to your site, popular and only turn up
a relatively small amount of returns at MSN. Then create a description
that contains these keywords, but is readable, fairly short and accurately
describes your site. If you are submitting through Looksmart, don't forget
to also add these words to your "Relevancy Keywords".
In the best possible case, your title should also contain a keyword or
two. However, this is often impossible, because Looksmart's guidelines
instruct that the title should be the official name of the site. If your
site's name does not contain any keywords, don't try to fool the editors
by adding them. They'll simply cut them from your title which might cause
them to be tempted to edit your description as well.
Other than your title and description, there definitely are other
things MSN uses to determine your ranking. Unfortunately, I must admit
that I currently don't have a clue on what these things might be.
Among other things, click popularity and the presence of keywords in
the name of the category you submit to have been claimed to have effect.
Whether these theories hold water or not is unknown to me at this point.
For now, just optimize your description and title, plus add "Relevancy
Keywords" if you are purchasing a listing. I'll update this part of the
article if and when I get more information about MSN's algorithm.
Paying for Looksmart?
Those who can't submit to Zeal are probably wondering whether to
participate in the Looksmart pay per click plan or not. The answer to this
question largely depends on how much money you can make from an average
visitor to your site and how well your site is able to rank at MSN. Unless
your site produces over 15 cents of profit per visitor, it is obvious that
Looksmart is not worth its price.
Even if you can afford to pay what Looksmart is asking for, it might be
worth it to look at other possibilities first. For example, Overture has a
minimum bid of only 5 cents and is cheaper to set up. To top it off,
Overture results also appear in MSN under several keywords and are placed
above the results coming from Looksmart.
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