Traffic Logic's "Article Insider."

[Chris Boggs]

According to their press release from 8/17, unnamed company claims:

"Offering exclusive search engine placement through carefully-crafted content, "company" became an industry pioneer, garnering conversion rates at an unprecedented two to three times higher than market competitors."

Any ideas on the truth of this statement? Any experiences using the Article Insider PPC system?

[Chris Boggs]

this company offers an "alternative" to Google and Overture PPC, claiming to get click-throughs from a more "targeted" audience that visits "Review magazine" search results. they offer a certain number of clicks for a certain amount of money, with a larger (ie$20,000) deposit gaining a lower CPC (according to some proposals I've seen it looks as if they sell these based on what they feel the customer can afford)

[Elisabeth]

I just happened to come across this page from article insider while searching on a related term in google a few minutes before reading this thread - here's the cache of the page:

http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:jLVTjtV4BdIJ:caraccessories.article insider.com/55186_jeep_accessories.html+jeep+cherokee+parts+ar ticleinsider.com&hl=en

[Chris Boggs]

this will go by the way of the dinosaur once SE's and directories figure this out? I know this will probably turn into a black/white hat discussion...but c'mon...can we as SEO's truly compete against this if the search returns and ROI's are that much better as claimed? I don't mean to be an alarmist. but anyone?

[JohnScott]

It's an interesting idea. If you don't want to play the Google game, generate your own traffic and sell that. Interesting concept.

[seobook]

my general philosophy is that if you are creating content just to make profit and it clutters up the internet with junk then that is just greed.

i would never pay people to create junk content.

[Chris Boggs]

thanks for the candid response.

[Chris Boggs]

what is your take on the link you provided, you can message it to me if you want to go off-record. thanks, chris

[Marcia]

If the traffic isn't coming from search engines and it's *more* targeted, anyone care to venture a guess where it is coming from?

If you don't want to play the Google game, generate your own traffic and sell that. Interesting concept.
Some of the pages are turning up in SERPs for lesser keyword phrases so some kind of Google game is being played. But John, traffic is not like dust bunnies - it doesn't just appear out of thin air. Unless it's alchemy, like generating precious metals out of nothing by casting spells.

Is the "build it and they will come" being untrue that people have been using to sell promotion services all along now working differently so that you can just build it now and traffic will come out of nowhere just because your content is great?

Very interesting concept, and it's also interesting that no one is venturing any guesses where the traffic could possibly come from. Either no one has the vaguest idea how or no one is wanting to actually come out and say anything.

[Chris Boggs]

I did an inurl:"reviewmagazine.com" search at Google and reverse-searched one of the results. Search "asian dating" at Google and Number 5 is an article insider article. apparently they get these leads and hope they click-on "recommended asian dating service" box, which gives a list of the SEM company's clients. those clients pre-pay per click for leads from here.

[seobook]

If the traffic isn't coming from search engines and it's *more* targeted, anyone care to venture a guess where it is coming from?

apparently they get these leads and hope they click-on "recommended asian dating service" box, which gives a list of Traffic Logic clients. those clients pre-pay per click for leads from here.

evidently they pre filter the leads from the search engines...which makes them more targeted :confused:

[Chris Boggs]

simply adding another "layer" to the search though...
and i wonder how many clients they can sell the lead-to.

actually I just went a step further and tried to link to their "recommended asian dating service" and got the following error: <Critical error: Unable to load CodeCrypter module.>

methinks possible this asian dating client ran out of click$, or perhaps it's another issue.

[seobook]

simply adding another "layer" to the search though...
and i wonder how many clients they can sell the lead-to.

actually I just went a step further and tried to link to their "recommended asian dating service" and got the following error: <Critical error: Unable to load CodeCrypter module.>

methinks possible this asian dating client ran out of click$, or perhaps it's another issue.

I think they really do not care about the other stuff and are probably making pretty fat money from the AdSense ads. when you consider how many random search phrases that site ranks for you could probably bet that it makes thousands a day off AdSense.

I do not see it as effective promotion for clients since the AdSense ads are displayed above the recommended agents. To me it would seem silly to promote any network which did nothing but drive up costs for everybody.

[NFFC]

Chris Boggs, I think it is unhealthy when we focus on other's business models rather than concentrate on our own.

Its your choice though.

[seobook]

I think it is unhealthy when we focus on other's business models rather than concentrate on our own.

that is one of the biggest lessons of SEO and internet business right there.

[Chris Boggs]

c'mon...i spent five minutes yesterday on this stuff. do you really think that's focus?

The honest answer is we are considering possibly trying their services out and since this is a forum we thought we'd try to find out a little more about it. Perhaps I was wrong, but isn’t that what forums are for?

I would say that shows that
a) we are focused on our business model, and
b) we use sound methods (research) when making business decisions.

So… does anyone know the answer to the original question: does this product lead to conversion rates 2-3 times higher than other PPC models??

[Elisabeth]

Chris Boggs, I think it is unhealthy when we focus on other's business models rather than concentrate on our own.


I agree with you in practice, NFFC - but you also have to be aware of what the competition is doing at the same time, in order to do better, correct?

[NFFC]

>but you also have to be aware of what the competition is doing at the same time, in order to do better, correct?

Nothing wrong with keeping up with trends and new developements. Having said that I believe that a webmaster is in control of their own destiny, the flip side being that they have to take responsilbility for their own actions too.

If we look at things from a competition point of view I believe that if you look over your shoulder you give the person behind you chance to catch up. There_is_always_somebody_behind_you_trying_to_catc h_up. Indentify what *you* think is the right way forward, push that vision through, let the others worry about you.

There are two things stuck to my monitor:

Monkey see yellow button, press yellow button, gets bannana [copyright rcjodan :)]

There is no such thing as a bad plan. A bad plan, executed and followed through, will always suceed.

>I agree with you in practice

I think you need to read the thread from start to finish, its a hatchet job aimed at discrediting another company imho. I'm not saying that company deserves credit but think it would be a shame if this forum turned into a easy way to "shop a spammer".

[Marcia]

>>Perhaps I was wrong, but isn’t that what forums are for?

Forums are to share information, not to make people's business decisions for them. Nor are they to expose or dissect companies whose methods may not be the same as others, as far as what I know about forums.

How about if we discuss and dissect everyone's site -

[Marcia]

think you need to read the thread from start to finish, its a hatchet job aimed at discrediting another company imho. I'm not saying that company deserves credit but think it would be a shame if this forum turned into a easy way to "shop a spammer".

I agree 100%.

[Elisabeth]

>>Perhaps I was wrong, but isn’t that what forums are for?

Forums are to share information, not to make people's business decisions for them. Nor are they to expose or dissect companies whose methods may not be the same as others, as far as what I know about forums.

How about if we discuss and dissect everyone's site -


I un-deleted Marcia's post, because I think it's a good statement to make a counter argument to - although, i'm with rustybrick on this one, we have to get back to the topic of discussion at hand -

yes, we absolutely do share information in these forums, and their primary purpose is to discuss the business models, products and decisions made by SEARCH COMPANIES - after all, that's what all the talk about Google, Yahoo, MSN and et al. is about, isn't it? If we can't talk about those guys by name, perhaps there's no point in having forums at all.

It's what makes up our industry, and IMHO, every SEM company or consultant that puts their work 'out there' is fair game. I don't really see why one is really different than the other. and since Traffic Logic put out a press release on their product, it doesn't seem to me like they are trying to do it under the radar or anything. there's also no reason they can't come in here and defend/explain this particular service and results.

For the most part, I like the idea of generating that much unique content, as long as it's done with quality & user results in mind. (kind of like the model we had at about.com really, if you think about it)

yea, in the past other forums have stayed away from company specific discussions, but the industry's evolving so quickly and with SEW forums coming in late to the game, we felt it was time to change the rules a bit, especially as the bar has been raised, with the industry under the microscope as a professional service, with quantitative results.

And, with so many professionals and corporations heading to SEM conferences these days to discuss specific tactics & strategies, you would think we'd be able to have the same level of quality discussions in the forums online as we do offline in those conference environments, as on a professional level, we all seem to get along just fine there. I'd like to see that start translating a little better to the forums.

[Marcia]

I un-deleted Marcia's post

That's very embarrassing. :(

[Chris Boggs]

thanks for some support, I was beginning to feel a little shell-shocked :)

[Marcia]

>>I un-deleted Marcia's post

No, only *part* of the post was undeleted, not what was originally posted, in its entirety. What is now left after some of it was edited out is actually saying something other than what I originally said, and is conveying a different message than what I originally intended, and is in fact altering the perception of who it was intended to be directed to.

So actually it's saying something else now - and what's left does *not* represent what I originally intended, or to whom it was addressed. World of difference there! What it "seems" to say and where it ended up heading per subsequent response is not something I would have said or implied and in fact is heading toward something I'd rather completely stay away from. There's something being subtly intimated in the response, and I *definitely* do not want to go there.

Nope, a partial message, after editing, can have an altered meaning so it's different from the original and no longer represents the thoughts and intent of the original poster.

It really would be best if the whole thing were deleted because what's now posted may have my name on it, but it is no longer my post.

[Marcia]

Back to the original topic, which is Traffic Logic's Article Insider business model, having had my initial formal online training in a corporate environment at a big women's community long ago, where every jot and tittle of the TOS had to come down and be instituted with the approval of legal, my personal choice is to stay away from discussing any particular company online publicly, regardless of whether or not the *place* where I'm sharing my opinions considers that a viable consideration or not. So I'd prefer to stay with discussing the model in general.

The way I see it, this bears somewhat of a resemblance to the business model of affiliate marketing and/or the business model of those who are constructing sites for the purpose of running AdSense, sending qualified traffic for what amounts to PPC revenue. The difference between the two is that affiliate depends on a sale being made, while with AdSense, it's per click. Same model, IMHO.

Either way, if the site is pulling in traffic on specific search terms, whether through search engine listings or some other means, it's *technically* pre-qualified traffic. What scares me about "more qualified" is the prevalance of browser helper objects being used out on the internet, and the fact that there are, indeed, SEO firms involved with promoting sites that distribute them - but for our purposes, since it's only a generalized observation on an industry practice with no indication of this company's involvement with BHOs, let's assume it's search engine traffic for targeted search terms, and that the traffic is pre-qualified by reason of the site visitor having searched for the particular keyword phrase.

That makes the traffic sent to the clients via those pages equally qualified with the visitors sent to AdWords advertisers making use of Google's content network. So the efficacy could probably be considered comparable to the quality of traffic being sent to the AW people via quality sites, which is what these pages are.

The difference with this is that these are professionally written articles, co the content is legitimate, as opposed to the scraper scum that's being pumped out and is being found all over the SERPs. Other than that, there's a striking conceptual similarity.

Not quite an exact corollary, but the model of sending pre-qualified traffic by the click is what can be done employing cloaking. The company sets up the site, gets the traffic, and charges per click for sending the pre-qualified traffic to the customer. It's a more_than fair analogy because the per-click model is the same, although the content generation method isn't. Same mentality IMHO - send while they spend, and if they stop, sell the traffic to someone else.

The model of a content network isn't brand new at all; I believe it was WebSeed.com that had such a network for a while, and very successfully if I recall.

[Elisabeth]

Marcia,

apologies for cutting off the last statement - which was something to the effect of why don't we start with yours & picking it apart (disclaimer - that is not a direct quote, and I'm also sorry for that) i don't take the tone as changed any, but that's just me - either way, i felt the was just encouraging arguments/personal attacks off topic, and that's not the purpose of this thread. Members always have the option to owner edit their posts, so feel free to remove it all if you like -

it's also worth pointing out that again, this particular forum has a disclaimer/announcement at the very top that says we may talk about companies by name here, and we do not accept any liablity for comments made.

I'm now as guilty for straying away from the topic as anyone else- but I'mn glad to see you've gotten back to the issue at hand with an excellent overview of the model itself, and its general relationship to similar AdSense publishers, as well as some of the other content based sites like Webseed, Suite 101, about.com et al. Certainly similiarities there, and I agree, most likely pre-qualified readers.

So the claim of increased conversions could certainly hold true, (and just going on that thought without actual data or more information) I would assume a conversion to be a transaction from the point of that click, out of total impressions of the article(s), which may certainly be lower that the impressions driven by a broad PPC term on the larger engines, which tend to be lower in clicks, and the following conversion rate may be impacted.

[Chris Boggs]

marcia and elizabeth... I would agree that the higher conversion should probably hold true...wonder about the ROI: could be better now than later when more competing in this arena...

[pmarc]

Well, here's a rare one for the books -- Trafficlogic's trying to persuade me to join up. I'm an advertiser, not a technical guy. Your forum doesn't say much bad about them.. mostly theoretical + philosophical dialogs.

Here's my philosophy: I've spent a gagillion on SEO - with an seo that, knowing their credentials, you'd think could do the job. It's a marginal return so far. Unfortuneately the investment will continue before I have definitive confirmation. (By the way - SEO copy is not what LL Bean would publish publically. I did with great trepidation and I found a way to shove it where not too many customers can see it on my site, legally. It's a professional disgrace but I was into the investment and my plan so I couldn't turn back). My company, a small mail order concern, does not do anything LL Bean wouldn't do. That's the image that makes us money.

Anyway, I'm planning to reduce my Adwords budget by bidding lower, and expect to actually increase dramatically my ROI and also sales - capitalizing on the yr-to-yr growth of the 'net. More people seeing ads appearing at #15 listing is better than less people seeing ads at #4, and paying thru the nose.

Point is, I'm looking for a clever way to reduce costs and finally get natural lsitings on Google, and at a high listing - neither do I have now. Now that you've all had some time studying Trafficlogic -- what do you think?

Also, the TLogic guy said they just got $25M in venture capital. Nice to know if that's true.?? The VC's are not too liberal with money these days and a lot better 'net educated than in the mid-90's.

Thanx for your time.

[seobook]

Also, the TLogic guy said they just got $25M in venture capital. Nice to know if that's true.?? The VC's are not too liberal with money these days and a lot better 'net educated than in the mid-90's.

That funding eventually is intended to bring the VC profit one way or another and it may be bad as much as good. If you SEO is focusing your site on making really bad looking copy then you may want to consider hiring a link builder or an SEO who specializes in off the page optimization.

[pmarc]

but what about Traffic Logic?

[rcjordan]

>in the past other forums have stayed away from company specific discussions, but the industry's evolving so quickly and with SEW forums coming in late to the game, we felt it was time to change the rules a bit, especially as the bar has been raised, with the industry under the microscope as a professional service, with quantitative results.

>And, with so many professionals and corporations heading to SEM conferences these days to discuss specific tactics & strategies, you would think we'd be able to have the same level of quality discussions in the forums online as we do offline in those conference environments, as on a professional level, we all seem to get along just fine there. I'd like to see that start translating a little better to the forums.


With that statement, a good number of Jupiter's male legal staff just decided that they COULD afford those luxury SUVs their girlfriends had been eye-ing. Maybe even one for the wife, too.

[seobook]

but what about Traffic Logic?

I think everyone is going to have their own bias.

one thing to note is that you will likely be sponsoring adwords ads to competitors sites when you sponsor the site.

you may want to give it a try if other spots seem to expensive. If many spots seem too expensive you may need a new brand strategy or business model too.

I don't recommend it, but that is mainly due to my personal bias.

Make sure you track it if you decide to go through with it.

[Chris Boggs]

one thing to note is that you will likely be sponsoring adwords ads to competitors sites when you sponsor the site.

...Make sure you track it if you decide to go through with it.

Great point about tracking...I wonder how legitimate and detailed the tracking info will be if it is controlled by the seller. I would ensure that you can independently track or verify numbers with your own software, marc...it's worth it considering the investment you will be making.

About the adwords ads sponsorship that seobook mentions, I am maybe a little confused. True, the link that was mentioned in an earlier post to an "asian dating service" site does have AdSense at the top...but maybe not all Article Insider sites have that arrangement. I do not believe that we can assume that Marc would be sponsoring competitors unless he is using AdSense separately... :confused:

[seobook]

About the adwords ads sponsorship that seobook mentions, I am maybe a little confused. True, the link that was mentioned in an earlier post to an "asian dating service" site does have AdSense at the top...but maybe not all Article Insider sites have that arrangement. I do not believe that we can assume that Marc would be sponsoring competitors unless he is using AdSense separately... :confused:
Even if his particular pages did not have AdSense on them at the time of sponsorship other pages connected to it would and his payment would still be sponsoring that network and likely helping to fund the spread of those competing ads in one way or another.

Short term Article Insider may be a cheaper rate for the advertiser, but it the long run it drives up ad costs for all parties involved.

(Keep in mind that your ad prices are going to be at least somewhat based upon what AdSense is delivering, and if that AdSense network was already too expensive...)

That is why if you are worried about ad cost that I do not see it as an effective longterm solution.

[pmarc]

So the upshot is there's no wrong or right - and I ought to be studying Adsense right now. Agree?

[alexchapman]

I have actually used Traffic Logic for a little less than a year now. My industry is not very competitve and my budget was not that large so I couldn't afford Adwords or Overture. Traffic Logic was much cheaper and the results are ok. I get an average of 10-30 visitors a day to my site from TL. While not a huge amount of traffic, the click through rates are higher than others I've used.

I've also tried Iprospect in the past and they did very well for me too. Does anyone know of any other good firms to use - I need more traffic!

[seobook]

Does anyone know of any other good firms to use - I need more traffic!
why not work on improving the placement of your site to where you are not relying on a third party traffic provider?

pages from article insider also show adsense ads and direct a ton of traffic to your competitors

[Chris Boggs]

without knowing your industry, Alex, it is hard for me to speculate. We have clients that get good leads from bizrate and shopping.com, but they are in the retail sector. perhaps business.com's PPC model would be good if you are B2B. Seobook of course is trumpeting the merits of SEO...and he is right on. If your industry is not as competitive as you say, it might be easier to climb the organic rankings.

[massa]

>my general philosophy is that if you are creating content just to make profit and it clutters up the internet with junk then that is just greed.<

My general philosophy is that profit is the ONLY justification for creating content. Profit may be as simple as you just wanting people to see your vacation video, but you are still wanting something in return for your investment of time and effort. I believe the best content comes from those wanting the most.

What is cluttering up the internet is the people who create content with no real goal or objective in mind. They are just slapping up pages and hoping it hits.
*************************************************

Maybe I can help a little here with the whole "higher conversions" thing. For almost 4 years now, we have been acquiring a client and getting a target group of keywords from them. We then generate traffic based AROUND that group and sell it per click to the client, (we also have all kinds of CPA, affiliate deals and maintenance plans too). The key to the success of this approach is higher conversions. You can generate a million hits and lose the client. Generate three sales in a month and something can be worked out.

I saw a post a long time ago by BT of WMW stating that a good SEO generated traffic from hundreds of keywords and not just one. That is true. Our record for one client in one month was 1102 unique referrers. What MMT has been preaching for years is also true, that selling traffic is a winner and selling placements is a loser.

The key to both philosophies is that broad searches generate traffic but the high conversions come from the specific stuff. For example, if you get a hit from a searcher and the referrer was insurance, you have no idea what that person was looking for. Home, life, car, RV ?? Traffic count is high but conversions are like 1 out of a thousand because all you can do is hope to deliver a page like insurance.com that has every offer of every product you have somewhere on the page.

BUT, if you get a referrer like "cheapest renters insurance in Wisconsin", AND you can deliver a page that is EXACTLY what the searcher expected to find when they first clicked on your link from the search engine, now, that is consumer and not a surfer. You may not get two hits a month for that but a 50% or even 100% conversion rate is very likely because you showed the prospect what he was expecting to find. Now get 1000 of those those kinds of specific keywords AND be able to deliver what the searcher is expecting to find and you have high conversion making one happy, long term client.

To expect a consumer to dig through your site trying to find what they want is ludicrous. It's like thinking your site is so great that it will sell itself. NOTHING sells itself! The key to EVERY sale is knowing what the customer wants or needs and then satisfying those wants or needs faster, easier, cheaper or just better than your comeptitors. That is not conceptual, that is a FACT! Just ask Nick W.

Search engines are getting smarter every day, BUT, they ain't smart enough yet to know to deliver www.domain.com/BLUEWIDGET.html for a search for blue widgets. They still typically deliver domain.com. forcing the searcher to either dig through the content or do the back button boogie. We've been closely studying these kinds of numbers for years now and our research indicates, (and this has stayed consistent since about 1999), that a page has about 3 seconds to deliver or it's back button boogie.

There can be little argument that the engines are getting better, but as long as it is a link based algo, it will usually be the page with the links that comes up one top. The effort to get an interior page enough links to place for blue widgets is, (at least for the time being), labor intensive and cost prohibitive. The problem is that the page easiest and cheapest to get the links may not be the best answer for the searcher. That is problem #1.

Problem #2. is that you need to have some type of content management software that is capable of parsing the referrer and delivering specific content.

We convert on average over 35% of our insurance traffic
28% of our refinance and debt consolidation traffic
9% of our pharmaceutical, (you have to be the cheapest though)
Our gambling stuff is really good but it is still the lowest in conversions becuase everyone is always looking for FREE poker, FREE games, FREE whatever. In the gambling genre, you have to generate a LOT of traffic or get VERY lucky to make it worth it. We still have not figured out a good way to make money selling FREE.

While the concept of showing a search engine one thing and a browser something different may seem similar, (and treated with the same respect by search engines), to cloaking, it is not actually the same thing. On more than one occasion, we have been charged with being cloakers in spite of the fact I have tried many times past to explain the process. Naturally it is easier to look at only the surface and make assumptions but the subtle difference is that cloaking only allows you to optimize a page for search engines and then due to it's appearance, it is usually more appealing to the human eye to show a better looking,(supposedly better converting), page. The difference is that you are displaying content based on a spider's IP or user agent. That means you still have whatever page you cloaked showing up for a multitude of keywords that won't convert well. We have found that it is far better to deliver content based on the referrer. You search for blue widget, we give you the blue widget page. Search for red widget, we give you the red widget page. That is how we get those conversions.

Finally, we do a lot of PPC but this process focuses primarily on organic. We still find that organic traffic, in the top 5, IF you can control the content delivered, gets almost 4 times the traffic as the top spots on PPC. At least for the keywords we deal the most in. In my opinion, organic traffic and knowing what the searcher asked for and delivering that content is the pimp in terms of making the client money.

[seobook]

>my general philosophy is that if you are creating content just to make profit and it clutters up the internet with junk then that is just greed.<

My general philosophy is that profit is the ONLY justification for creating content. Profit may be as simple as you just wanting people to see your vacation video, but you are still wanting something in return for your investment of time and effort. I believe the best content comes from those wanting the most.
profit is a broad word.

many of the best things are made to solve problems and the joy of helping others is a type of profit.

strict monetary profit driven products eventually burn out...creating garbage thats sole purpose is to make lots of money without much care to help others is bogus. for example, I would be angry if I paid someone to set up a lead network for me that sent twice as many leads to my competitors.

What is cluttering up the internet is the people who create content with no real goal or objective in mind. They are just slapping up pages and hoping it hits.
not really, those pages rarely show. I think gread driven marketing is responsible for listing atop many more more search results.

[massa]

No need to be defensive. It was certainly not intended as any kind of attack. I merely saw an opportunity to express my own alternative perception of the same equation.

[seobook]

No need to be defensive. It was certainly not intended as any kind of attack. I merely saw an opportunity to express my own alternative perception of the same equation.
I am not trying to be defensive about it, I am just stating that profit is such a generic word that it has little meaning.

sure lots of pages are created without purpose (to you or me), but many things done with purpose are knowingly far more evil or destructive.

you can set up pages that have no purpose other than to create self replicating networks where others make the content and then later compile that content for other purposes. you may simply want to track seasonal search trends. to you a page that has no meaning or profit is perhaps a page that the writer gains great profit from.

you are usually the one giving me wisdom here Bob ;)

[Chris Boggs]

so let's take another quick look at what we're talking about. These type of pages are not "just slapped-up." There is a lot of thought behind this template, but as you will see here (http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&q=inurl%3Aarticleinsider) (a inurl:articleinsider search at Google) it is in fact almost a template. Take a look at the descriptions that show up for each "site" and tell me how similar they are. Then take a look at as many "sites" as you want, as long as it's more than 1. Looks familiar, huh?

If you'll notice, as has been pointed out, even though the goal of this page is to get people to "Click here for A.I.'s recommended ______ site," there appear at the top of most pages AdSense ads for competitors. I wonder what the percentages are of people that "Click here..." vs. people that click on an AdSense ad?

That aside, take a look at the thought behind the design. There are a ton of references of the keyword within text links on the left nav bar, and the content is cluttered a little as well. The site I looked at, however, looked better than last time. If you did not know what you were looking at, you would probably have no idea this was so similar indesign to other sites.

So once again I pose: would you do this? It would seem that this works, and the A.I. sales staff are probably not exagerating too greatly on their numbers. I really would love to hear from someone who has used this that wouldn't be afraid to show their link. Unfortunately, that will be difficult in this forum, because it could just as easily be an A.I. rep in "Halloween gear."

[seobook]

So once again I pose: would you do this? It would seem that this works, and the A.I. sales staff are probably not exagerating too greatly on their numbers. I really would love to hear from someone who has used this that wouldn't be afraid to show their link. Unfortunately, that will be difficult in this forum, because it could just as easily be an A.I. rep in "Halloween gear."
if you are sending more leads to your competitors than yourself is it actually working?

I have recently worked for someone who used them in the past. They get decent traffic (like 10-30 people a day) and the cost is not that expensive, but what stinks is if you stop paying then your ad is pulled. even if your competitors do not advertise where you were there still is all those adsense ads.

any way you slice it, you are paying to create another competing website in your own industry.

[Chris Boggs]

I'm hearing an echo in here :D

[seobook]

I'm hearing an echo in here :D
its a short term investment at long term cost. if you want to make it fine, but it is not something that builds any sort of long term value.

case and point: the site on AI cost my dude like $1500 upfront. I also later placed the same guy on page one results of google in a few months on under $1000 spend. my promotion is giving him much more traffic without the recurring fees and is not sending traffic at his competitors site.

I am just speaking from personal experience.

[Chris Boggs]

its a short term investment at long term cost. if you want to make it fine, but it is not something that builds any sort of long term value.


Your quote is the classic reason people buy SEO. But can you fault AI for being simply just another PPC choice? If you run out of money at Google or Overture, the same thing will happen, right? Let's put aside the competitor advertisements for a moment.

[seobook]

Let's put aside the competitor advertisements for a moment.
to directly fund a network which will perpetually fund sending traffic to competing websites (which it obviously does) makes it a different type of buy than most people buying PPC ads.

in buying normal PPC ads you are surely supporting the ad network, but you are not CREATING & FUNDING A BRAND SPANKING NEW AD NETWORK WHICH ETERNALLY SENDS TRAFFIC TO COMPETING WEBSITES.

other SEOs (such as http://www.makemetop.co.uk/ ) sell some SEO services on a CPC basis, but I do not think they use the network you are paying for to sell traffic to competitors while you are still paying for it.

paying to send traffic at competing websites is not a cost you can ignore.

[Chris Boggs]

you cannot ignore that cost. but can you ask Google or Overture to place your ad only within the sponsored listings? The searcher will read the content and then has a choice to click on the "recommended" link or one of the Google ads. IMO, the rec link will probably get more clicks. Essentially, the entity that gets the most out of this is Google, either way. At least with this method you have a chance of appearing in the organic listings, right?

[seobook]

you cannot ignore that cost. but can you ask Google or Overture to place your ad only within the sponsored listings? The searcher will read the content and then has a choice to click on the "recommended" link or one of the Google ads.
if the articles are not enticing it does nothing to build your brand and the recommended link will probably not work well against the best ads your market has produced over time. remember that the ads evolve and your pages are static ... most of which are not that interesting or compelling.

by making articles that read bad they get even more traffic to the adsense since people will not want to read through the articles.

[massa]

I wish my people could do it that well. We are much more focused on the client but only because we don't have the resources AI has to create that much content. What they are doing, (as far as the "it's just a template"), is no different than CNN, Pandia or just about any other online publication. Very well done and professional.

As for:
> if you are sending more leads to your competitors than yourself is it actually working?<

You're looking at it from the perspective of the buyer only and not the seller. The seller, (AI), has a responsibility to it's stakeholders to generate as much revenue as possible. So he wants to sell all the ads he can. The buyer, (the SEO client), has a responsibility to his stakeholders to keep expenses as low as possible. So he wants the space exclusively without having to pay more. A deal has to be made and at anytime there ceases to be value in the relationship, the relationship will alter. In other words, no one is going to pay to send traffic to their competitors. They are paying to get traffic to their site. If they don't get enough traffic to their site to satisfy their stakeholders, they will not continue to pay.

>but what stinks is if you stop paying then your ad is pulled<

Of course. If Google stopped paying on the adsense ads, AI would pull those ads too. Think about it. That doesn't stink, that is just the way it works.

I'm not familiar with AI's services so I may be talking through my hat here, but from what I see, they sell the traffic they generate. In my case we sell it by the month or by the click, I assume they do it much the same. If I put 100 ads on my site, that's my site. The thing I have to remember is by doing that I reduce the likelihood of selling those ads at a profit. I'm sure AI has to face the same challenge.

It's really not a fair comparison because what we do and what they do aren't really the same. They generate traffic to their site because of their content and then they sell that traffic. People don't go to their site to buy things, they go there for the content. While they are there getting the value from that content, AI sells the eyeballs. That's their business model and I think it's a VERY good one. That's a great example of what I was saying about the people making the most profit generate the best content.

With us, we generate traffic to go to a client exclusively. One client, one project. Also, we are no strangers to ADsense. Even so, we often send traffic from one placement to more than one client. The most common reason of course is their deposit against clicks runs out. Anyone with any experience with ADwords or Overture should be pretty familiar with that concept. Another reason could be that one url gets hits for some keywords that one client doesn't want to pay for, so we sell it to someone else. But that's not quite the same thing as going to a page where you have paid for an ad and you see 12 ads to your competitors.

That doesn't change the value of what you are buying though. It either brings you traffic that converts or it doesn't and if it doesn't then you aren't going to keep paying and then AI has to find a different offer to generate revenue. Where can anyone advertise that doesn't create a market that could be stolen by your competitors? There is value to some degree in proximity. Why do you think anywhere you find a McDonalds, there is a Burger King across the street or a Taco Bell on the other corner. If the content is related, there will be competitors. The trick is to write compelling titles, descriptions and call-to-action ads that capture the eyeballs of interested parties better than those of your competitors.

The only criticism I can make of AI is those ads on the right of the content really suck. You'd think they would at least be direct links huh? If you say those ads are delivering 10 to 30 a day for keywords like mortgage leads, that is worth something even if they are sending a thousand a day to someone else. The guy getting the 1000 a day is probably paying 100 times more.

Of course the deal you mentioned for less than a grand, naturally, THAT is a good deal. That does not change the fact though that there is still value in what AI is offering. Again, as always, it boils down to conversions.

[seobook]

>That's a great example of what I was saying about the people making the most profit generate the best content.

do you really agree that the content of that site is of high quality or just that it supports an extremely profitable business model?

>Where can anyone advertise that doesn't create a market that could be stolen by your competitors?

their own sites. they can build something that is good enough of an idea with strong enough competitive advantages and build it up to where it grows exponentially over time.

(certainly there are other SEOs who are way way way way better than me) but my point is that over time if you do good work and your site is ok then eventually you will do well. I am doing well now primarily because I market my own sites.

another problem with the AI site business model is that (at least on my browser) the adsense ads are at the top of the page. I then have to scroll down past a blank page down to an article where the person who is paying to have the network set up has an ad.

If I am paying to set up the network I want my ad first and formost...I should not be option #2 or 3

[Marcia]

It's a newer version of the old Webseed content network, with a PPC for sending traffic from links and with AdSense put on for revenue. Conceptually like Webseed but with subdomains. Remember them?

[massa]

Yeah, I remember Webseed. I liked them too. But of course, I like bus fumes and dirty socks.

[massa]

>their own sites. they can build something that is good enough of an idea with strong enough competitive advantages and build it up to where it grows exponentially over time.<

#1. if that is their strategy, then they don't need me.

#2. If it is a commercial site, then it never grows enough. Expenses always go up and you are ALWAYS looking for more traffic to increase sales. Any site that does not devote a percentage of revenue for expanding market share, (more traffic), will never grow exponentially. What you have here is a dichotomy. If the market is there for exponential growth, then so are the competitors stealing your market share. You could have #1 placements on every engine out there and you would still lose market share if you do not look for other convertible traffic sources. If it's good for you ------ then it's good.

#3. I said,
>Where can anyone advertise <

You said,
>their own sites.<

Building their own sites is not advertising. It is just building a site. You are not advertising until you take some action that delivers traffic to the site you built.

#4. >where it grows exponentially over time.<
Time is money.

#5. >If I am paying to set up the network I want my ad first and formost<

VERY valid point. I don't blame you one bit. BUT, that does not mean AI's model is bad, only that it may be bad for some. Also, I'm willing to bet that if you offered to replace or enhance the revenue generated by whatever is on top now, tomorrow you'd be where ever you wanted.

I'd gladly pay a million dollars to have my ad at the bottom of anything. IF, it made me a 2 million dollar profit. (extreme example for entertainment purposes only).

[seobook]

#1. if that is their strategy, then they don't need me.
I still have a lot to learn, but since I work by myself I am kinda limited on time so I like teaching and working with more than doing everything myself. If they totally want to outsource then thats different too.

#2. If it is a commercial site, then it never grows enough.

#3. I said,
>Where can anyone advertise <

You said,
>their own sites.<

Building their own sites is not advertising.

If you build the site good enough then some of that traffic will occur naturally. Look at how much traffic Seth Godin gets to his blog. But true that you need to do other advertising too.

#4. >where it grows exponentially over time.<
Time is money.
I don't think the article insider site was ranked any quicker than his site was after I did seo stuff for it.

#5. >If I am paying to set up the network I want my ad first and formost<

VERY valid point. I don't blame you one bit. BUT, that does not mean AI's model is bad, only that it may be bad for some. Also, I'm willing to bet that if you offered to replace or enhance the revenue generated by whatever is on top now, tomorrow you'd be where ever you wanted.
For the most part all my other arguements / disagreements are based exclusively around this single point. If the recommended advertiser was listed atop / more prominent than his competitors everything else I am saying would prettymuch be a moot point IMHO.

I'd gladly pay a million dollars to have my ad at the bottom of anything. IF, it made me a 2 million dollar profit. (extreme example for entertainment purposes only).
you think you would only make 2 million by being on the bottom of everything!!! I think that the link popularity would be worth more than that.

while some links sell for only a quarter many are worth thousands per month
http://www.pradnetwork.com/pricing.htm :D

[alexchapman]

I am constantly working on making my site better, but I don't have the know-how, time, or resources to build out the kind of site that is going to perform better than articleinsider. That's why I buy traffic from them. I'm aware that if I pull my funding, they'll sell the traffic to someone else, but that's the same deal you'll get anywhere. Google and Overture aren't going to keep sending me traffic if I stop paying for it. (Although I wish they would!!!) With AI I get a lower CPC, a higher conversion rate, and a listing in the ORGANIC search results.

[alexchapman]

And...just so you know, we bought a campaign on their network of content that already existed. As far as I've learned with working with them, they are always writing about different things depending on their writing staff, and then they go and sell sponsorships on that content. I guess it is the same as CNN or any other network. I'm a little confused as to what is different about this network than any others. They seem to also have a lot of legitimate experts listed on their homepage so it seems like the content is pretty good... just my 2 cents.

[seobook]

And...just so you know, we bought a campaign on their network of content that already existed. As far as I've learned with working with them, they are always writing about different things depending on their writing staff, and then they go and sell sponsorships on that content. I guess it is the same as CNN or any other network. I'm a little confused as to what is different about this network than any others. They seem to also have a lot of legitimate experts listed on their homepage so it seems like the content is pretty good... just my 2 cents.
the content may often naturally match up, but speaking in the case of the person I know of who hired their services the content was made specifically for his topic.

[Chris Boggs]

I enjoyed reading the back and forth between massa and seobook. good points made by both IMO.

the content may often naturally match up, but speaking in the case of the person I know of who hired their services the content was made specifically for his topic.

so isn't that basically SEO? with a serious SEM-slant? ;)

[seobook]

so isn't that basically SEO? with a serious SEM-slant? ;)
it indeed is.

my general philosophy is that I want to help myself far more than I am helping my competitors...and thats why I think the person paying for the content creation should be listed first.

any other complaint I had is based around the idea of "if I am paying it is me first...me! me! me!"

Bob has way more marketing and web experience / knowledge than I do though and usually teaches me something with about every post he writes so I liked / learned from many of the points he made too :)

[massa]

That was a nice thing to say Aaron and I appreciate it. Respect is something I think we all deserve more of and we should all be willing to show it as graciously as you.

>so isn't that basically SEO? with a serious SEM-slant? <

I believe it certainly should be. I believe targeted content development with a stated objective is crucial to your clients, to your personal goals and to the web.