5 replies to this topic

[smeyer56]

I have been looking closely at MSN for the last two months and have not seen much change until last week. They always seemed to have three sponsers from Overture on top and then 11 from Looksmart. These 14 were then followed by their "true" search results. On Thursday of last week they added a single site above these others and today that is gone but the Looksmart listing seems to have 13 sponsers listed now. Does this happen frequently? It bumped us from page one to page two and we don't want to pay for listings. I am just curious if this is a frequent change, but we are in top 5 for Google so it doesn't really matter.

[Mel]

The Looksmart results in MSN can run to hundreds for some keywords and the number depends on the time of the month, with more earlier in the month and less later on as the advertisers budgets run out and they are temporarily dropped from the LS results

[Tenyque]

Almost sounds like they toyed with adding a "Featured" site. Featured Sites are comprised of marketers dealing directly with MSN, sites considered of great value by those at MSN, or inside sections of the MSN network of sites.

Related Story, MSN is testing dropping Looksmart listings altogether:
http://www.netimpera...News_0000056274

Let us know if you see any of this also!

[saraazriel]

What I've been trying to find out is what happened to their Overture listings. Did they drop them now that Overture is owned by Yahoo? I can't find any of my Overture ads on MSN.

[Haystack]

Saraazriel, MSN occasionally adjusts their use of Overture based on the bid prices where bids below a certain price are not shown. Maybe this is what you saw?

MSN has stated they're going to continue using Overture . . . for now. It seems like they'd rather not help Yahoo make money in the long term so keep an eye on that scene.

Tenyque, MSN has stated that they're going to phase out their featured listings - as in the ones where they were selling space above the Overture listings directly to advertisers. They probably need to honor some contracts so they'll phase out over time. However, they also use that space to feature some of their own products and I'd expect they'll continue to do that.

smeyer56, what do you have against paying for traffic? There's a big difference between being in a prominent sponsored spot vs. hanging onto the bottom of the page. If you can turn a positive ROI on the terms relevant to your business, do it!

[saraazriel]

Hmmm... I emailed Overture and this is the reply they gave me:

We understand that you have recently inquired about your listings not appearing on MSN.  While we try to give our advertisers maximum exposure for their search listings, our affiliate partners ultimately decide which listings will be displayed on their sites.  Each of our affiliate implementations are different, which means every term may not appear on various search engines, which we state in our terms and conditions.

In the case of MSN, only listings for selected terms relating to the following general categories are displayed:

· Computing
· Entertainment
· Finance
· Health
· Homelife
· Shopping
· Travel

.... and it goes on with personal details after that. I thought it was interesting how MSN only displays Overture listings in those categories. Since all of my sites have to do with information and not products, that must be why they are excluded.

I guess this makes Inktomi all the more important if you want to be found in MSN.