SearchKing: No longer a search engine/portal network?

[choie]

Does anyone know what's happened to SearchKing?

I've been part of the SearchKing portal network since late 1999/early 2000 running a couple of very small directories, and have nearly always been happy with the service. Especially since as an "early adopter" my portals were free! I know some have had issues with a few of SK's practices -- the controversial PRAd network thing, etc. -- but generally my own SK experience has been quite satisfactory. Until this year.

For the last several months, however, there's been a greater than usual amount of downtime (like, anywhere from 40% - 75% of the time!), non-responses to emails, and the frustrating disappearance of posts & even user accounts in their INDN.org forum when I've tried asking for info. The latter issues could be due to server problems, I don't mean to suggest something nefarious!

It's a neverending pattern. A day of uptime has been followed by a week of downtime, and vice versa, and little to no explanation about what's going on! Every now and then their tech folks explained somewhat vaguely that their servers were being "attacked," and that was causing the problems. However, they allegedly just moved to a new server to fix the problem. Also, there was supposedly a major DNS issue also back in late summer that seemed to last forever.

Now things are even stranger. Last night my directories were working for the first time in a week. But once again today my portals were down (they're up now, knock wood!). Even the paid "premium" portals with their own domains/special servers weren't working either.

During this latest downtime I visited SearchKing (http://www.searchking.com) this afternoon and discovered a huge change in their setup: the search engine/directory is gone, as is all reference to the portal network! Now it's just a list of links to paid SEO-type services, and SK itself is billed as "The world's source for top quality SEO services and products."

Um, yipe? Is this the abrupt end of SK's role as a portal provider?

Don't get me wrong: I've always known the free accounts were likely to end someday. But it's not just affecting the free accounts like mine. And even a lowly freebie user like me sure would appreciate some kind of notice and the ability to download my data. My portals didn't have a huuuuge number of listings, but they held about 600 sites all told. Recreating that is gonna be a pain.

I can only imagine how the paid portal owners feel about all this.

I don't mean to seem ungrateful. SearchKing was a terrific community for a long while, offering an incredible opportunity to niche portal developers. Over the past five years SK's service has helped me tremendously to grow as a web developer.

All I'm saying is that while I'm very pleased with the years of free service SK has given me ... I do wish the SK team would be more upfront about whatever's going on.

(BTW, I'd have posted this on their support forums, but my last post asking for info was deleted, and my account suddenly has no ability to post. I re-registered but never received the confirmation email. One problem after another! :()

Thanks in advance for any advice or info you can give me -- and sorry for all the rambling!

[seobook]

I have read other complaints about the downtime being days at time multiple times this year. the lack of notice is probably more than just a little bit frustrating too.

[Marcia]

choie, from the looks of the homepage there's no way to tell; it looks nothing like it used to.

[Brad]

I'm not sure if they intend to continue being a search engine or not. It's been a long time since anything was mentioned about that.

[MrMackin]

The owner of SK posts here at SEW.
I'm sure he will provide a 3 page answer to your questions. :eek:

[Nick W]

Only three? :eek: :eek:

heh!

[massa]

>I'm sure he will provide a 3 page answer to your questions<

Contrary to my reputation, I don't LIKE writing those long posts. They take a lot of time which I'm always short of. I only post those long posts when I honestly think I can contribute to a complex concept. I rarely post but when I do, I put a LOT of time and effort into it.

Now, if anyone has specific questions, I'll do my best to answer them. I may not tell you what you want to hear, but I will tell you the truth or I will tell you nothing at all.

[seobook]

I will tell you the truth or I will tell you nothing at all.
well phrasing this as a question then...
I'm not sure if they intend to continue being a search engine or not. It's been a long time since anything was mentioned about that.
does SearchKing intend to continue being a search engine or not?

[massa]

Yes. SearchKing still believes that at this time, the worst human reviewed data is better than the best computer sorted data. SK still believes that allowing humans to do what humans do and then using computers to make what they do scalable is better than using technology to learn to "ACT" like a human without giving credit to the humans the technology is trying to act like. SK still believes in trying to develop software to aide humans in reviewing, sorting and delivering data. SK also still believes the single biggest challenge to a truly scalable human reviewed network is monetizing the efforts of the individual "portal" operator. Finally, SK believes that relevancy can not be determined or defined by any search engine or computer program. If you think it's relevant, then you're right. If you think it is not relevant, then you're right.

[choie]

Wow, I'm delighted that my post received some responses. Many thanks to all.

Now to the man of the hour. Hi, Bob! :)

Now, if anyone has specific questions, I'll do my best to answer them. I may not tell you what you want to hear, but I will tell you the truth or I will tell you nothing at all.

Erm ... did you notice my first post up there? I did try to ask at least one specific question -- heck, I put it right in the subject for all to see. I'm a little disconcerted that you didn't respond to me directly, only to the others you seem to know here on the board. As a member of the SK network for nigh on five years now, I made sure to take a great deal of time & care to compose a non-obnoxious, non-flamey message. Did I not succeed?

Well, even if I didn't, one of my main questions was 'sorta kinda' answered in your "SearchKing Credo."

Yes. SearchKing still believes that at this time, the worst human reviewed data is better than the best computer sorted data. SK still believes that allowing humans to do what humans do and then using computers to make what they do scalable is better than using technology to learn to "ACT" like a human without giving credit to the humans the technology is trying to act like. SK still believes in trying to develop software to aide humans in reviewing, sorting and delivering data. SK also still believes the single biggest challenge to a truly scalable human reviewed network is monetizing the efforts of the individual "portal" operator. Finally, SK believes that relevancy can not be determined or defined by any search engine or computer program. If you think it's relevant, then you're right. If you think it is not relevant, then you're right.

Nicely stated, although actually I think you forgot to add the word "Virginia" after that first "Yes." No seriously, SK sure believes a lot, doesn't he? (I'm not sure if I should be anthropromorphizing SK, but since he has such strong beliefs I guess I might as well. ;))

Anyway, I'm far from an SEO specialist, nor am I a public relations person. I'm just a chick with a couple of portals. Maybe it's just my humble role as a mere everyday web developer, but I'm not seeing the direct answer I was hoping for. In your above quote, I see ideals and broad goals ... but no actual info about what's been going on.

Of course, I think it's great that you still plan to develop tools to help those like me who have directories. Yay! Gotta love that.

But I still want some general details, even if you can't give me your entire business strategy. So I'll try again. And this time I'll make the questions a bit more obvious.

HEY CHECK IT OUT! Specific questions coming up!!!! HERE THEY ARE! ~~>

SPECIFIC QUESTION #1: What happened to SearchKing the search engine and directory of "portals"? (Also, why the quotes around the word portal now? Is there another word we're supposed to be using?)

Y'know, I vividly remember when you and your webmaster (Shane, I think his name was?) first started talking about SK to the folks at JimWorld, inviting people to discuss how the search tool would work, having us submit our sites, lots of stuff about point weighting and so on. As a true newbie to web development back then, I loved being part of a brand new project, especially one so ambitious and inclusive.

All this is to say that I'll be rather bummed if the search engine is no more. And the directory too, of course. Actually, the directory will be even more dearly missed ... my sites were listed in it! Heh.

SPECIFIC QUESTION #2: Kind of a minor question, but here goes: SK's engine fed our portal searches as supplementary listings, so if it's no longer existent, do we need to change the code? And shouldn't this be announced to the portal owners?

SPECIFIC QUESTION #3: Now to the most important issue, at least as far as I'm concerned (and I'm sure many other SK Directory owners): what are your general intentions regarding the network of directories/portals/vortals/shmortals hosted by SearchKing? Why has there been so little contact with the SK portal owners? I ain't talkin' about the PPP newsletter, which seems to spend most of its time kvetching about Google, LOL! I'm talking about a general "State of the Union" type of newsletter. SK's barely mentioned at all in PPP these days. That PPP email we received about two weeks ago from Jake was the very first time I've seen any reference to the downtime in a network-wide message, and that just referred to the (then-latest) problem. There was no real explanation about what the heck's been going on with the nonstop problems since the beginning of the year.

Honestly, Bob, with so many outages and apparently at least one huge change for SK (the switch from a search engine to a regular SEO biz), wouldn't it be worthwhile to zip out a note to everyone now and again? Not only worthwhile to us, but to you guys -- the more you communicate with us as a whole, the less time your techies need to deal with emails from angsty nags like me!

Now, as a free hostee I guess I can't really demand communication; I'm lucky to have anything, at least when it's actually up and running, LOL. And hey, for all I know you, Jake, Kathy, Phil et al. do contact the paid portal owners every other day with emails bursting with info. That's cool, they deserve being first on the food chain. But couldn't some of that info-sharing be trickled down to the peons with free sites? Especially those who've been with you from practically the start, hint hint?

As I mentioned in my original post, the INDN.org forum has been of little to no use during these downtimes. In fact, a recent series of events pretty much encapsulates the SK problems I've been having rather nicely (downtime, lack of communication, and a disturbing sense of foreboding/paranoia that our portals are no longer a matter of interest to SK). Look at the following and imagine what your response would be as a site-owner:

a) I posted at the forum asking for info about one of the relatively recent downtimes, not to mention the incessant up & down nature of the server.

b) Soon I received a notification that Jake had responded to my post. Yay! Quick responses are awesome.

c) Unfortunately, when I immediately went to the forum, suddenly I couldn't get back in because now the forum was down too!

d) I wrote to Jake explaining that I couldn't get to the forum, but could he let me know what his post said, please? Never got a response.

e) When I could get back into the forum, I discovered that the message and Jake's apparent response were gone. Whether this was due to a server hiccup (likely) or a moderator removing signs of dissent from a peon (unlikely, I hope), I knew not. I still know not.

f) Undaunted, 'cause I can be a tenancious little lady, I tried to repost the question (or ask a new one). Guess what? My account was no longer recognized! Again, this could've been due to the server glitch ... or an evil forum moderator. I'm still guessing the former. (And my middle name isn't even Pollyanna!)

e) I tried to re-register, assuming that the forum database was probably screwed up due to the latest server issues. The INDN site was working perfectly, so it seemed. But after registering I never received a confirmation email. Which means I still can't post 'cause I'm not recognized. Sigh.

You can see how this might be a tad frustrating, even for someone who knows she's lucky to have anything at all?

Frankly, INDN.org's forum, with its little SK ghetto, has been somewhat of a letdown from the start, at least for those of us used to having a SearchKing-devoted support forum. It's as if now that the focus is on the niche directory industry as a whole, the folks whom SK hosts have become a liability rather than the core of your business. Hey, that's fine; sometimes businesses grow and their goals change.

But what's not fine is that more and more, I'm feeling as if SK's portal owners -- both freeloaders like me and paid customers -- are being treated like the tenants of a rent-controlled building, with a landlord who has Big Plans for his property and thus tries to force the tenants out by withholding services like hot water, heat, security, maintenance, etc.

That truly doesn't sound like the Bob Massa or the network I've been happily part of since 1999. I'm almost certain that it's an unfair assessment. Still, that is how it's coming across to many of us.

So let me reiterate/restate SPECIFIC QUESTION #3, which is the one I'm most concerned about:

Are you planning on continuing your directory hosting business, including the free portals (at least the lucky ones who were "grandfathered" way back in 2000 or so)?

Whew! OMG, this has gotta be longer than any of the 3-page posts some of y'all were joking about. Sorry about that. What can I say, except that Choie still believes that she can get an answer to her questions. Choie still believes in communicating things clearly and honestly. And Choie still believes that a small company can offer good, reliable services to even free customers (as long as they follow the rules and include SK's banners/search results).

'Night, all. :)

[RodB]

I am afraid I would have to say asked and not answered as well Bob. I also had the problem of the notification at the indn forums.

[Nick W]

Contrary to my reputation, I don't LIKE writing those long posts. They take a lot of time which I'm always short of. I only post those long posts when I honestly think I can contribute to a complex concept. I rarely post but when I do, I put a LOT of time and effort into it.


Was only kidding mr massa, you should know that. There are very few people on this board that i actively hunt down posts they've written - and read every word! :cool:

[Marcia]

In all seriousness, looking at the very beginning of the first post here

Does anyone know what's happened to SearchKing?
That's addressed to "anyone" - the general membership at large, asking if "anyone" knows anything. Apparently no one outside of the SK organization knows, and while massa stopped by and gave a brief comment, anything further between an individual and the SK man himself should be taken up privately - since that's beyond the scope of "anyone" and is really a private matter between the individuals concerned.

A private conversation really can't be forced to take place out in public, that's not the purpose of publicly accessed venues.

Just my humble personal opinion, of course.

[massa]

First of all, if the mods aren't comfortable with this thread, I understand if it is deleted or closed. That said, there may be some benefit of allowing it to be discussed for the benefit of the members. I'll respect your decision.


> What happened to SearchKing the search engine and directory of "portals"? (Also, why the quotes around the word portal now? Is there another word we're supposed to be using?)
<

That is actually four questions but----
#1. >
> What happened to SearchKing the search engine <
Nothing other than a mountain of tech problems with the servers, the dns zones and the hyperseek software. The search engine is still there.

#2. >and directory of "portals"?<
The directory is still there but out of the 400 or so portals that were listed in 2001, we had less than 100 that actually had someone running it without just re-directing the traffic to another site. I don't have the staff right now to take the time to update and maintain the directory so we had to mamke a decision as to what to do about it. It is a shame that there are a few like yourself, (I don't know who you are or what sites you have), that may have been getting traffic, but there is just no way we could financially justify leaving 400 bad sites to send traffic to a dozen good one.

#3. >Also, why the quotes around the word portal now?<
It was intended to show that a portal operator was nothing more than a name we gave to someone operating a website with community building tools. That is a habit I got into back in 99 when I first started putting the network together and I had to explain over and over again what a portal was.

#4.>Is there another word we're supposed to be using?<
I don't recall ever telling anyone what they were "suppposed" to do. Portal partners was just what we called it so we could identify people within the network. It kind of became engrained into the culture of the community. Good name but it's just a name. You are free to your web presence anything you like.

>SK's engine fed our portal searches as supplementary listings, so if it's no longer existent, do we need to change the code? And shouldn't this be announced to the portal owners?<

Again, that's not a specific question it's at least two. Anyway, it is still existent and there is no need to announce that anyone has to change their code.

The next specific questions looks to me to include at least about 9 questions and a half dozen opinions and personal commentaries. I'l try to answer the best I can.

>what are your general intentions regarding the network of directories/portals/vortals/shmortals hosted by SearchKing? <

To continue developing custom programs that allow the general web public who is so inclined to quickly and easily review, gather and deliver web data based on a specific request in accordance with their own definition of relevancy. To find ways to effectivley monetize the efforts of those people and to build a truly scalable human reviewed data delivery system.

>Why has there been so little contact with the SK portal owners? <
There has been a LOT of contact with portal owners. I paid someone for almost a year to administer the forums and publish the portal partner press on a weekly basis. The PPP has gone out every week, (with very few exceptions), since October of 1999. I had someone answering specific questions in the forums and I personally instructed Jake on three separate occassions to let everyone know what happened at the end of May when the major problems first occurred.

There has been a lot of contact. I have just learned from experience there is no point in just answering the same questions over and over. It just makes things worse. When things break, you need your people focused on fixing it not answering one question over and over for a hundred people.

>That PPP email we received about two weeks ago from Jake was the very first time I've seen any reference to the downtime in a network-wide message, and that just referred to the (then-latest) problem. There was no real explanation about what the heck's been going on with the nonstop problems since the beginning of the year.<

Then you haven't been reading the PPP. All issues are archived at the portal partner press website. portalpartnerpress.com

>Honestly, Bob, with so many outages and apparently at least one huge change for SK (the switch from a search engine to a regular SEO biz), wouldn't it be worthwhile to zip out a note to everyone now and again? Not only worthwhile to us, but to you guys -- the more you communicate with us as a whole, the less time your techies need to deal with emails from angsty nags like me!<

You'd think that was the case but experience has taught me that it's just the opposite. The more I have to give bad news the more tech problems we get. In the past, everytime I would address a problem, we would get flooded with
"my ads won't come up"
"please look at my site, I can't add new urls"
"My site is running slow, please check it"
and on and on and on and on.

You have to remove yourself from an individual's perspective and try to see the whole thing in terms of resources. When you have limited staff and limited finances, everyday is a struggle to make the decision of where those resources are best deployed to do the most good for the most people. Into that mix throw a free, sophisticated, feature rich program with a learning curve and the challenge begins to become apparent.

I've also learned a lot of public relations this past couple of years, (which is why I stopped writing the PPP myself and hired professionals to do it), and the one thing you don't want to do is keep telling people about the problems and/or promise to fix something when it may be beyond your control. You don't overstate or promise what you can't deliver or focus on bad news.

> for all I know you, Jake, Kathy, Phil et al. do contact the paid portal owners every other day with emails bursting with info. <

We have never communicated more with paid accounts over free ones. The data was all that mattered to us and not how much was being paid.

For all the rest of your specific question I'll try to sum it up so as to keep this as short as possible.

We found a good host in 2001. Mach10. They had some problems with being on some ORBS lists that they failed to mention to us in their sales presentation, but we had finally found someone who understood our unique business. The servers were fast, reliable and secure.

Then one day in Septemeber of 2003, we got a letter saying Mach 10 had been sold to National Net and the problems started. They didn't support java. They didn't know anything about C-panel, they didn't know anything about hyperseek. They also seemed to know very little about security. That was the beginning of our tech problems.

I had to devote a LOT of time and money chasing rabbits trying to keep everything up but it was a losing battle. We started looking for another host but we didn't want to take a chance so we only moved part of our network to Hi-velocity because they claimed the did know security. This was jumping from the frying pan into the fire.

We started being down more than we were up and then in May, we were hacked. Hacked as bad as you can get hacked. Trojan horses and back doors out the wazoo. We had to move and move quickly. That is when we found out that the host had not been doing the back ups we had been paying for and the dns zones had all been set up incorrectly on literally thousands of domains, (which had been at the root of all our problems since we got sold to natnet).

We were down for 6 days including over the Labor day weekend. I had tickets to be in London on June 2nd for two weeks. We got the sites responding but could not find all the files. That is when I realized that the sys admin we had had for over a year, either could not do the job or would not and either way, I was screwed. I fired him and went to London.

We kept going down over and over. Tomcat kept opening processes without shutting them down and crashing apache. We could not get all the dns to resolve correctly. The whole time, the hackers kept getting back in everytime we set up another server because we could not find the backdoor. Those are just for openers.

From the end of May until the first of October, we suffered through until we could find another host willing to work with us. We think we have found them but you have to understand that moiving 9 servers with thousands of sites, dozens of custom programs and knowing we alreday have security breaches is not easy. We are making progress but it is still a tech nightmare. The new host has put a lot of time into helping us and learning our systems and softwares, so with any luck, we will get stable and stay that way and can start building again.

By the way, your complaints about the indn.org forums, that is how the hackers got in. Through Ikonboard. It is a mess and I doubt it will survive. It's been down more than up.


That takes care of most of the questions you asked in regards to tech problems specifically. However, it doesn't really answer your basic question as to what happened to SearchKing.

It looks like Mr McMackin was right and my answer will end up taking up three pages. I will answer your question from a financial and philisophical perspective in another post. That is the one that really honestly answers the question and I think may provide some candid insight into what happened to one of the largest search related networks on the net. Anyone who has an interest in niche directories should find some useful info from a search engine placement viewpoint as well as just some inside dope on running a large network.

[massa]

I was writing this I guess while RodB and Marcia were posting too. Marcia certainly has a point but I could really use a little help here. I don't have a good place to post this as the INDN.org forums are VERY unstable. I also had no choice but to lay-off the forums admin and the editor of the portal partner press jsut this past week. At least until we can get the servers stable. I don't really have a good outlet right not for getting info out. If you can find a way to indulge me, I promise to do my best to give info that is useful or at least interesting. I will wait for a while before posting again but if the post is still here then I will candidly discuss the Google lawsuit, the PR Ad Network and what I see as the future of SK or any other search network.

I will discuss it in a way that is not promotional. I could not sell a portal right now if I tried. I said I would discuss SK in another post but it's up to the mods and I will respect their decision.

[Marcia]

Thanks Bob, your openness and sharing is much appreciated. You're a gentleman, as always. :)

[Brad]

Disclosure: I have a vested interest since I have one of those SK portals too.

But with that said I would like to hear more of what massa has to say. I learned more in the last two posts about hosting (and potential ikonboard vulnerability) in the last two posts than I ever have in any 40 page Google dance 'me too' type thread.

I'd like to see massa indulged too, if that is possible.

[Nick W]

Deal me in too Brad, i have no vested interest at all but it's facinating stuff...

thanks bob!

[MrMackin]

I have known Bob since about 1998 and facinating stuff always seems to happen to him. And he has a way with words when telling us his tales.

[Marcia]

I would also like to hear. I almost signed up for one several years ago, just never got around to it, but my only personal interest is that I've always appreciated the information Bob so willingly shared over time, particularly when I was first starting out.

[choie]

Thanks very much, Bob! Now that response came from the Bob Massa whose forthrightness and knowledge I fell in (virtual) love with. :) I hope you understand that my complaints and personal opinions peppering the last message were generated out of frustration and concern, especially after my original post seemed to be ignored. Just note the difference in tone between my first and second posts. My second was much snarkier, a direct result of feeling dismissed.

Anyway I do sympathize with the glut of problems your network and business have had with Mach10. Sounds like an utter nightmare! And I also understand what you mean about sometimes causing more problems by announcing tech problems than by remaining silent; I host my design clients and also run an online community, and I've had to make the tough decision whether to share or withhold info.

But honestly, I think on balance -- at least for me -- I've had to fall on the side of sharing. It may cause a small flurry of more questions, but I'd rather be annoyed than have my clients think I'm avoiding full disclosure.

I'm sure that's probably easy for me to say when I don't have thousands of clients or members. All I know is that when the shoe's on the other foot, as it is for me with SK, when my sites are down, a lack of response or explanation, even a brief one that says "sorry guys, when we know more you'll know more", makes me very, very worried.

I will have to check back with the PPP, because over the past few months I really don't remember seeing the name "SK" mentioned hardly at all; I was exaggerating about the relentless Google-kvetching ... but only by a little. I guess the PPP has increasingly felt like a newsletter about ranking well with Google, and less like one about running a directory. In any event, from the sounds of it I guess we'll be saying ave atque vale to the PPP. I hope she'll rise again!

To Marcia: I really am sorry if my post was inappropriate. I hate newbies who don't understand the rules of my forum, and I hope I haven't offended you guys. I honestly didn't think this was really a personal issue between me and Bob; as Brad and RodB can attest, there are others in the network who want to know what the 411 is. And in any event, learning more about how a network of directories works would seem to be of interest to many here at the SEWF. But if I erred, please accept my apologies!

Well that's all from me -- except thanks again to Bob for your latest replies, which I really do appreciate. And needless to say, I'm anxiously anticipating the answer to the question uppermost in my mind: whether the SK portal owners are still gonna have a home for our portals.

(BTW, Bob, my name is Kira. My primary portal is at episodic.searchking.com, but the one I started with was soaps.searchking.com. Tiny and very non-monetized, but still much beloved by me and others. :) )

[massa]

Hello Kira.

I'm running out of time today and won't be able to post until tomorrow but after seeing who you are I did want to come and let you know that we were able to get most of the third level stuff up today including your two and Brads.

However, we are having to move a lot of them one at a time and we are still not able to get all the HS features working just yet. Some searches won't work, others it may be the rate a site or something else. Progress is coming slow, but it's coming.

Tomorrow I'll try my best to find the time to let you know why it's coming slow and what I see as the future for SK.

[lots0]

I too have known Bob for some time and I have watched how SearchKing has done business, for years.
I once had one the SK premium portals that actually did get some traffic... At one time Bob even offered me a job. I have also defended Bob in the IHY and other forums on several occasions, most notably, over the issue of SK suing Google. I only tell you all this so you will know that I speak with more than a little knowledge about this subject.

I know I am skating a very thin line here, I would be willing to bet that the mods have already (or soon will) delete at least a few posts in this thread. I will try very hard not to be one of those that get deleted.

I agree that Bob is very eloquent in his written responses and I can say from personal experience that he is just as well spoken, at least over the phone. But whenever I speak to Bob I never forget one thing, he is first and foremost (by his own admission) a salesman.

I think that maybe it is because Bob is a salesman, well maybe not, anyway, often what Bob says and writes do not match with the facts, in my opinion.

I tell friends, NOT to do business SearchKing. I tell them this based on my personal experience and the experience of others that I have personal knowledge of...

Whenever SearchKing comes out into the light, it always reminds me of a very important tip for any beginner;
If you are building a directory or opt-in mailing lists of any kind, anywhere, keep control of your own data. Do not let your hard earned data become “part of a network” because once your data joins a “network” all of that data you laboriously collected is no longer under your control and is in fact no longer just “your data”, the data also belongs to the “network” and is controlled by whoever controls the “network”, maybe that is why some “networks” offer free stuff like hosting and software...

SearchKing still believes that at this time, the worst human reviewed data is better than the best computer sorted data.

We have never communicated more with paid accounts over free ones. The data was all that mattered to us and not how much was being paid.I added the bolding.


For those of you that still do business with SearchKing, good luck, in my opinion your going to need it!

[lots0]

Oh yes, I forgot to add, that searchking and all the SK free "portals" are still under penalty from google (how many years has searchking been under penalty from google now?). I believe that SearchKing and all the free portals are all PR0 and are on all the email spam watch lists, not too good for traffic or sending email from your domain.

[mjr]

There ARE some very good and hard working "portal" members in the SearchKing network and it is out of respect for those people I will keep my post as positive as possible given my first hand opinions of Bob. I too speak from experience being former portal owner, employee (for several years) and stock holder.

Frankly it comes down to 3 basic flaws in the SK system. 1) Bob is constantly changing his priorities thus many things are never finished 2) He should have many years ago bit the bullet and simply hired the Hyperseek developer (John Cokos) to re-tool and fix Hyperseek, much what is broken in Hyperseek is a result of SK's own limited knowledge techs hacking the code. 3) Major lack of communication. In stead of "answering the same questions over and over again", use your forums and answer those questions once. People look to the leader for answers when there are problems. Don't bury your head in the sand and hope it all goes away or assign it to some subordinate to deal with. Take charge, lead and communicate. In doing this people will feel that you at least care and will stand behind you in dire times.

[lots0]

There ARE some very good and hard working "portal" members in the SearchKing network...Oh I agree Mike.
It is just too bad that all these good hard working portal owners are working under the handicap of being hosted by SearchKing and the PR0 Bob has earned from google and SK’s lack of technical ability and the fact that SK is on all the email ban lists for spamming or hosting spammers.

IMO, the positive thing for all these hard working site owners that are currently hosted by SK to do, is for all of them to find a decent new host and for them all to be in of control their own data and reputation.

Remember that who you associate with on the Internet DOES matter. There is a little thing called "link reputation". So if your site is hosted by a company that is considered by most search engines and many many others as "questionable", it does matter, it will effect your SE rankings and in the long run it will effect the way people perceive you and your business.

[RodB]

FWIW I too own portals at SK and have been the long road. I wasnt actually posting about that. The vulnerability in Ikonboard can be fixed relatively easily. The issue has to do with cookies. There is exactly one file which needs to be replaced. The file is called func.pm - it goes in the Sources/Lib directory.

The patch is here http://www.planetspectre.com/files/ib3x_func_patch.zip

This will fix the hacking problem on an unhacked board and you should theoretically be fine. Also you should be running 3.12a version which is an easy upgrade.

If you are running any Ikonboards at all this patch needs to be installed.

If you have been hacked the buggers leave behind some nasty stuff. If you need help - you know how to reach me. It takes about an hour to repair a board if they really were vicious.

Hope this helps.

[Jake]

It is just too bad that all these good hard working portal owners are working under the handicap of being hosted by SearchKing and the PR0 Bob has earned from google and SK’s lack of technical ability and the fact that SK is on all the email ban lists for spamming or hosting spammers.

First, Massa did not "earn" a PR0 for anyone. Google dished it out in spite. If they had it in for anyone they should had focused on SK and not the entire network. As you well know, the whole purpose of the lawsuit was to defend the innocent portal owners who were painted by the broad brush used by Google. As it turns out, Massa has been proven right. Take a look at all the sites selling PR today. He was a pioneer and suffered for it. And if you don't think it was about money from Google's end from the very beginning, well, think again. It's always about the money.

Second, yeah, there's some technical issues to be addressed, but it sounds like they're working on them.

Third, if, in fact, SK is on any email spam list, it is because of the server, not SK. That, too, is being addressed as he mentioned earlier. IMO, that was a below-the-belt shot that is unworthy of you.

[choie]

Thanks Bob, my portals are running again for now! Always a happy thing to see.

FWIW, my homely little episodic.searchking.com portal is at PR3 -- not exactly earthshattering, LOL, but since I mostly link to it via a redirect (and even that isn't promoted much) I'm not surprised. So Google doesn't appear to be blacklisting us, at least not all of us.

Of course webmasters do get associated with those with whom they associate. It works both positively and negatively. And clearly many have had very bad experiences with SK, while others have had much better experiences. I fall in the middle. A great beginning and a troubled year or so. I am highly curious to hear what others who have more definite opinions have to say. I hope we can steer clear of either bashing or gushing, though.

I've seen MJR's illuminating posts here and elsewhere, and they're of special interest to me since I remember him as having a major role as a one-time SK employee and/or advocate. (If you're the same Mike who had a local directory about California?)

I also remember lots0 as being on the SK network, and RodB too. It's like old home week. ('Course, like most family reunions, there's always some feuding going on! :))

[massa]

Whoa everyone. This is going nowhere fast. Anyone can tell there is a lot of emotion tied to this and that is simply because a lot of people invested of themselves into something they believed in. That belief has been either killed or threatened and it hurts. No one understands that better than I do.

I fully intend to address what we were trying to do, what role MJR, lotso, Brad, Rod, Kira and many, many others, played , what went wrong, what went right and where we go from here. I will not be able to do that if this deteriorates into "name" calling.

I'm still absolutely plagued with server and software problems and it is taking a lot of time. I don't really have the time to go into this right now but I will, I promise.

Rod I do appreciate the fix you gave for Ikonboard. This kind of illustrates just one of the problems with trying to build and maintain a large network though. While I appreciate the gesture, the truth is that I don't need a fix. I need someone to take responsibility for the entire spectrum of problems. I need another resource I don't readily have available. To put your fix up and then move to something else just compounds the problem when it breaks again or needs another update or whatever. The same goes for the hyperseek code, the same goes for the server, the dns zones, the SK algo, Keyword delivery, and on and on and on. Not one of those things needs a quick fix. That is just one of the things that got me to this point. All those things need resources. Focused, dedicated, cost-incurring resources.

One thing I will address though,
>he is first and foremost (by his own admission) a salesman.<

I have NEVER "admitted" to being a salesman. I find the implication misleading. I have bragged about it. I have claimed the title many times and I am telling everyone here now, again, I am first and foremost a salesman. I have been in sales all my life and I'm good at it. Partly because I don't see it as something that needs to be admitted. I see it as a profession.

We are all salesmen. We all want what we want and we try to use whatever is at our disposal to get it. That is sales. That is people and it is not something to have to "admit" or try to hide or be ashamed of.

Please, give me just a little more time. Then let the crucifiction begin.

[lots0]

Hi Jake,
Don’t you currently work for Bob?
I wonder why you did not state that minor fact in your post....

Jake, I don’t remember you being involved with SearchKing during the SK vs. Google law suite. And your replaying of the events does not match the facts. I was there and involved (I even submitted a statement to Bob’s lawyers) and I remember it quite differently. You need to chill a little and check the facts once in a while.

First, Massa did not "earn" a PR0 for anyone. He sure did earn it, but that is another story for another thread. (Actually, observing the way google has handled sk was very educational and truly does deserve another thread of its own IMO).

FWIW, my homely little episodic.searchking.com portal is at PR3 No it is not, it is a PR0, just like the sk main page and ALL the SearchKing subdomains.

I fully intend to address what we were trying to do, what role MJR, lotso, Brad, Rod, Kira and many, many others, played , what went wrong, what went right and where we go from here.

My final comment on this subject;

If you want to host with sk that is your business. But for your own good, you really should take a very close look at sk before you make that decision.

If you were my friend or a client, I would advise you to stay as far away (virtually) from sk as you possibly can.

Bob the answer to the question in your PM is - Yes -.

[mjr]

I've seen MJR's illuminating posts here and elsewhere, and they're of special interest to me since I remember him as having a major role as a one-time SK employee and/or advocate. (If you're the same Mike who had a local directory about California?) Yep it's me, still have the California directory, however I sold the two city directories for an offer I couldn't refuse :) How the heck are you?

Anyway back at the discussion....

I don't think that it is in anyone's benefit to let this thread degrade into "lift the dogie leg" match. I do believe that everyone has a right to post their opinion as long as it doesn't slip from the grey area and get personal.

Rod - You're right on target buddy :)


As far as SearchKing goes, frankly, as long as Bob is going to offer up the excuses nothing it ever going to get done. IMHO Bob I'd start by getting help from those that are offering it, i.e. Rod. If it were me, and I'm nobody special, and given all the down time SK has had, I would bring it offline, move it to another server, get the Hyperseek/hack stuff fixed probably from John Cokos (The developer) or at least go to those programmer for hire places. Then bring everything back online fixed. Then hire a searchking babysitter to troubleshoot the problems as they come up - remember though you get what you pay for :) Maybe you should consider renaming it, GoogleKing? JUST KIDDING! :)

[JohnScott]

Lots0, are you telling people to stay away from searchking or stay away from Bob Massa or both? I'm just curious.

[Jake]

Don’t you currently work for Bob?
I wonder why you did not state that minor fact in your post....

No, lotsO, I do not currently work for Bob. I did in the past and I might again in the future, but that has no bearing on my comments.

Bob has always treated me fairly and honestly, and all I know about you is what I read in your postings, and frankly, I'm not impressed.

[Marcia]

In all fairness to everyone concerned, how about let's not get personal and stay constructively with the topic?

The whole issue has implications that go even further than SK, in general principle. In general, there are always risks that go along with basing a business model on a subdomain of another site. In SK's case, they always stayed free as far as I know, but in two other cases I personally know of that merchants got involved with, both of them for ecommerce with shopping carts, both ended up having to charge - which became mandatory.

I know little of SK, but to me it sounds like lack of monetization is an issue. The concept of a "free" web is noble, but the facts don't support it being feasible.

Question: if the portal owers who have subdomains want to switch over to having their sites on a regular domain of their own, for whatever reason, is that possible?

[MrMackin]

Not sure what John might work out but:

Hyperseek

Full Purchase Price: $1,750.00
Personal Training: $275.00
Up to 3 Hours
Professional Installation $99.00
EZ Payment Plan (Software only): $500.00/month (4 Months ... total of payments: $2,000.00)


"Plus Pak Bundle"
Full Purchase Price: $2,000.00
Includes: Hyperseek Software License, Professional Installation and Up to 3 Hours of Training ...
a $125.00 savings
EZ Payment Plan: $600.00/month (4 Months ... total of payments: $2,400.00)

[DaveN]

Lots0 firstly i have never worked with bob in fact i might have meet him once not sure,

but i will stand behind him and say that when searchking was launched a lot of people jumped on that bandwagon and yes a lot of people got hurt and i bet a lot of people made money out of him too... things change on the net very quickly and when google wants to hurt you they can.... its happend to me and I have picked up clients because it had happen to them as well..

we are all big boys and should lookout for ourselves

DaveN

[Marcia]

First of all, everything on the web has a lifespan, and can't be sustained forever without effort - and cash - being put into it.

At this point in time, though I don't know, it's my guess that there may not be the type of revenue stream to support whatever is needed to keep the system going. Just because Bob started something that was a great idea and worked well for a lot of people for a long time, does not, in my estimation, obligate him to take cash out of his own pocket forever to support it.

That may or not be the case, but since it appears it's coming to a crossroads to me the logical thing to do would be to turn the portal partners loose to pursue their sites on their own domains, or - as necessity would only logically dictate - start charging the portal partners for maintaining the system should they choose to remain within it.

[lots0]

Lots0, are you telling people to stay away from searchking or stay away from Bob Massa or both? I'm just curious. Hi John, a loaded question there. Let me answer this way...
One person runs sk and makes the decisions.

I know little of SK, but to me it sounds like lack of monetization is an issue. The concept of a "free" web is noble, but the facts don't support it being feasible.tisk tisk ;) , You did not read my posts very well. The sk "portal network" was set up to provide human reviewed data to the sk directory/search engine for very little cost.

Give people "free" hosting (on a 3rd level domain) and free directory software and then incorporate their hand reviewed data into the sk directory. As Bob as stated several times and places "data is all that matters" and "human reviewed data is better than search engine reviewed data". So you see when it comes to searchking's so called noble idea, I kinda get all choked up, if you know what I mean.

The big problem is that as the data became less and less valuable (thanks to google), so did the "portal partners"...

The way sk was set up was actually a rather brilliant idea (even if it is a little twisted), give people free stuff then use the fruit of their labor to power your own directory/search engine. Of course it would have been nice if the "portal partners" were let in on the deal.

[massa]

What happened to SearchKing?

I appreciate this opportunity and out of respect will try my best to be as concise yet comprehensive as possible. I will break the posts into small parts so that anyone can skip reading any part that does not interest them thereby keeping it as short as possible. However, the story of SearchKing is important. Not because of me but because it represents a part of internet history. Since 1997, SearchKing has interacted with a lot of people, a lot of search engines, a lot of clients and a lot of money. It is one of the first and one of the largest search focused networks on the net. It has had an impact and whether you think that impact is positive or negative
there can be little doubt that it has played at least a minor role in shaping the direction of the internet, search engines and search related internet commerce.

I'll begin by stating once again, this has nothing to do with promoting anything other than the concept that there is value in humans reviewing and organizing internet data. To illustrate, I've got a joke for you.

Q. What's the difference between SearchKing and a homeless man?
A. The homeless man is a better host.

Lotso said
>If you want to host with sk that is your business. But for your own good, you really should take a very close look at sk before you make that decision.<

I tell my friends and clients the EXACT same thing.

What I'm about to disclose is not an apology to anyone. It is not an attempt to shirk my responsibility or to blame anything or anyone other than myself. It is also not a debate about what I should have done or what I should do. Remember it is easy to see what the OTHER person is doing wrong but it is another kettle of fish altogether to go invest enough of yourself to show the world how to do it right. As we've already seen, there is plenty of advice for me. If it's so easy, why isn't there a lot of SearchKings out there now?

The fact is it is not easy. I know. I'm willing to share this story from my own perspective in the hopes that I may be able to save someone else the trouble of making the same mistakes. I can't tell anyone how to do it right, but I can tell everyone some of the things I now know were wrong. I have gotten a lot of experience over the last 7 years and experience is what you get when you are expecting something else.

I will try my best not to get distracted by specifics and remain focused on the "big picture". The purpose of breaking the post into small topics is partly to help me stay focused and resist the temptation to defend against details that may seem all-important in the posters comments but in fact affect only an individual or small part of the group or the problem simply does not justify the cost to address it. Keep in mind that I am not saying the specifics are not important. They certainly are, especially to the person pointing them out. I'm just saying that I can only address issues based on the priorities derived from my own perspective looking at it as how to solve the most problems for the most people with the resources I have available. The categories will be:

The big idea
The money
The programs
The people
The mistakes
The lawsuit
My regrets
The plan and what I see as the future of niche directories.

[massa]

The Big Idea

The big idea actually had nothing to do with building a network of niche portals at first.

In the summer of 1997, I hung out a lot at the Warriors forums. Kind of the SEW of it's day, complete with it's own Googleguy of sorts. Only back then Infoseek was king.

Anyway, someone posted that they had been busted by Infoseek but that no one from the company would answer their emails and they wondered what they could do. Looked upon as a kind of resident SEO expert within the community, I replied that it may be easier to just get another domain and start over rather than begging for a response from a company notorious for their lack of responses. Well, some IS employee with an email address of spamassasin, emailed me that Infoseek did not like people recommending multiple domains to one person so they wiped out the placements of my domain and every client we had. You know how they knew who my clients were? Because like the naive, peace and love, ex-hippy I was, I listed all my clients right on my main website with contact details and urls as references.

I have always had a real problem with authority and my perception of the abuse of authority really gets me motivated. Motivated to get me suspended from school. Motivated to leave home at an early age. Motivated to sue huge tech companies and basically motivated to take a bad situation and usually make it much worse. I admit to being guilty of being bull-headed, tenacious, unwilling to listen and unshakeable in my convictions once filled with righteous indignation.

So, here was a company who had just tried and convicted me because I answered a question in an effort to assist someone who Infoseek could have answered themselves and the question would have never been asked in the first place. This company whose vice president at the time was dominating the 6 o'clock news for being arrested while trying to hook up with a 13 year old girl he had seduced in an internet chat room, and had now passed judgment on me without any semblance of due process. I was motivated.

Furthermore, this was a company that was putting fast meta refreshes to the top within 30 minutes of submitting. Their answer to fighting this problem was to disable the auto submit on weekends. I thought it was a poor excuse for a real search engine compared to Alta Vista, Excite, Lycos and HotBot and I didn't feel they would have ever gotten as big as fast as they did had it not been for SEO's talking them up. I thought I could do better with my limited tech knowledge and even more limited revenue stream. In hindsight, that was my first mistake.

The idea was simply to put more focus on human review. To me, Infoseek and the others main objective was to eliminate the expense of human involvement. To try to automate algorithmically, the process of cataloging huge volumes of data. I could see the profit potential in trying to get one machine to do the work of a lot of people, but I could also see the reality was far from actually doing it.

I wanted a way to do get Yahoo quality without the expense, (which I felt I couldn't afford at the time), of a staff of hundreds of editors. A way to use human intellect and opinion on an individual basis to improve relevancy and use the computer programs only to make the process scalable. Still motivated, I set out to find the people that could help me build it.

After a couple of feeble attempts with a few internet notables such as Dave Kelly and Jude Lacour,( before they became internet marketing icons), I wised up a little and sit down and actually drafted a business plan complete with objectives, strategies, cash flow studies and basic software design. I found a local company desperately wanting to get their development company off the ground and met a very smart young man who, using my basic design documents, put together a real one. I was impressed, made the deal and SearchKing was born.

To my knowledge, SearchKing was the first search engine to ever effectively use searcher responses in the form of votes as the backbone of a working algorithm. We had instant indexing. We allowed you to instantly edit your own titles and descriptions. We had a pretty sophisticated adult word filter that actually worked back in 98 and we had a philosophy born out of those Search Engine Forum discussions that Kira mentioned. We had no system for penalizing anything. We took the approach that we were not trying to penalize and filter out the bad stuff, rather we were focused on trying to reward and include the good stuff. A concept that I believe has merit even today.

I was now about $30,000 in the hole and a monthly cost of about $1500 to keep it maintained. We were plagued by Microsoft/Linux compatibility problems from starting out on a MS box and being limited by the features offered then starting to use the open source magic of Linux. Microsoft never has liked that much. I began learning about things like DNS, IP addresses, routers, networked servers, oh yeah and let's not forget about that, "show up unexpectedly and never leave while eating you out of house and home" buddy, ---- bandwidth.

Still, I saw the whole thing as a success. I actually had built something pretty neat and I was proud.

The idea for a network of portals came from the fact that after about 18 months we realized that people don't go to search engines to work harder. The purpose of a search engine is to SERVE a human searcher, not to expect that searcher to SERVE the search engine. This is why there are no well known voting search engines right now. There are plenty of "rate this site" buttons on small engines the world over, including the free SK portals, but so few people take the time to do the voting that it shoots scalability and predictability right out the window.

That's when we decided that expecting a few people to rate everything was not going to work. A better approach would be to provide the tools to people who wanted to review a lot of data that pertained to a specific subject and form a centralized location to direct the search traffic to a keyword specific "portal" as opposed to a website. In the beginning, our focus was on local portals. I think we even called the first offering Hometown portals or something like that. At the time, using a search engine to get a pizza delivered was still just a glimmer in the eye of a few tech start ups like City Search. Turns out it is much harder than it sounds.

By this time, my relationship with the people who had built the first SK engine was becoming strained. They had way underbid the deal from the beginning and it was becoming increasingly obvious with each passing day. I pitched my idea of making the SK software available as a shared program but they were able to convince me that it could not work. They were right as it turns out. Enter Hyperseek.

Not long afterward, we changed our company slogan to
“SearchKing is the foundation and traffic generating center of the world’s largest network of independent niche directories.”

I will stop here as I prepare the next post. Please bear with me as it is going to take me some time. In the meantime, I believe every article I wrote going into great detail just what the plan was, is archived in the portal partner press.com It may not be responding properly as I am still in server hell, but it is there.

[massa]

The money.

In '97 and '98 the tech stock boom was just getting really hot. Anyone recall Webvan? The 200 million dollar venture capital deals were really throwing a monkey wrench in the conventional wisdom of evaluating start ups. Still, the internet was basically a small town in the old west that just had a railroad line go through it. I can't imagine the California gold rush of 1849 coming close to rivaling the rush to Silicon Valley. It seemed everyone was ready to make a deal.

I'm sure that environment had more than a little to do with my cost estimates being in the hundreds of thousands to get the search engine built. I realized even though I was being quoted prices in that range, that estimates rarely come in UNDER budget. I knew from the very beginning that what I was proposing would take more than a year and cost close to a million dollars. The problem was, I didn't have a million dollars.

I also knew that venture capital was a definite probably not for me. I don't have a college degree and if I were going to invest in a company, I would expect more formal education than I could offer. I knew from the beginning that whatever it cost, I didn't have it, no one was going to give it to me and if I needed money, I would have to MAKE it.

In 1995, at the age of 41, I owned a printing shop specializing in business cards ready in an hour. I sold a lot of business cards. So many in fact that I soon found myself putting in more and more 14 hour days. I lived on coffee, cigarettes and fast food and as any sane person could expect, I had multiple heart attacks that summer. I lost just about everything and fell into a deep depression. The internet saved my life, and still, as much as I hate computers, I dearly love the internet and the promise it offers to all.

I never had any idea I would have a knack for thinking like a search engine and be able to understand what makes one document addressing the same question get put on top of another. Turns out I did. By the end of '97 I had actually rebuilt a life based on placing websites in the top of the results of Infoseek mainly, (I can actually kind of understand why they didn't like me much), under terms that made my clients money. Boy, was it easy pickins back then. Swear to goodness, in early '97 I don't think there were more than about 200 people in the world doing SEO. It wasn't even called that back then. Can you imagine. All that greed and desire divided up between only 200 people. Ahhh, those were the days my friend.

So, by March of '98 I planned on supporting SearchKing with the money I generated from Magic-city.net, the search engine placement service. More than a little ironic I know. That's what I did and that is part of why I'm in such dire straits today, technically speaking. I've always had to keep my eye on expenses rather than expansion. That is not the optimal situation for a business wanting to grow. Typical, just not optimal.

I have never had the luxury of being in a position to hire the best people for the job. I have been more inclined to hire the people willing to do the job for what I could afford to pay. I could very likely hold the world's record for getting the most benefit from employees for the least salary than anyone in history. I have had some really exceptional people do some incredible things for much less than they deserved.


That said, to date, I have spent a little over 1.2 million on building and maintaining SearchKing. Both as a search engine and as a portal network. I have had to adjust my projections almost quarterly since the beginning and I would say realistically, it is going to take another 5 million minimum to actually complete the "plan".

[mjr]

Question: if the portal ewer's who have sub-domains want to switch over to having their sites on a regular domain of their own, for whatever reason, is that possible? It is possible but very costly as indicated in a previous post. In addition the version of Hyperseek that SK is using is an older version that has had several modification hacks and is shared globally with-in the SearchKing Network of Portals; this includes the free and different levels of paid portals, which also is included in several of their hosting plans...

Footnote: When referring to "hacks and modifications", note that these were approved by the software developer John Cokos - no need for any misunderstanding :)

[Jill Whalen]

Fascinating, Bob! I remember those days well, and am looking forward to your next installments! :)

[RodB]

FWIW I tend to agree with Mike. I have no idea what Bob's relationship with John Cokos is but from my experience John is a great guy and amenable to discussion. I also think one problem solved is one solved and gone. Solve one every day and eventually the situation resolves itself. What was the old Chinese saying? "A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step!" The blanket thing doesnt really work for me.

One other thing not all SK portals have a PR0.

[ihelpyou]

Amazing stuff here, but I'm siding with Lotso in this thread. He is dead right on.

[massa]

The Programs

People don't pay to do a search. There are some subscription search services, (anyone remember Northern Light?), but all-in-all, the consuming public expects search results to be free. People may pay for hosting. They may pay for custom software but most revenue generated by any search service comes from selling advertising to the eyeballs drawn by the lure of free, relevant searches.

This means that building a search engine program, no matter how good it is, is a formula for financial failure. To build a search engine AND a successful business, you need more than just a program to deliver data and a database to store the data in. You need a program, (or at least a system), by which to deliver and manage the sales of advertising and/or other products.

In the beginning, we had nothing but a database, an algorithm based on the votes from the public and a banner rotation script. That was it. The timing was a little off because at the beginning of '98 people were paying north of a $100 cpm for graphical banners. The cutting edge stuff at the time was banners that displayed based on a search term. By the beginning of '99 those same banners were doing good to pull $1 cpm. At about 10,000 searches a day, we were losing money and could see no light at the end of the tunnel.

We knew we needed the database, the algorithm, a spider, an ad delivery system, and an admin panel to exercise some control over our own results. But we also knew that what we needed above all else were the eyeballs. That brought us to the question, "why would anyone want to search at SearchKing instead of Yahoo?" To us, the obvious answer was relevancy and more of it. That forced to accept that the public voting approach was not going to be scalable enough to even compete with Yahoo's measly million urls. Which brings us to the niche directory network concept.

Once we decided to replace the voting algorithm for a network of independent niche directory operators, we realized we needed to not only be able offer everything SearchKing had to every portal partner, but then we would also need a system to be able to share revenue with the partners on our ad sales that displayed throughout the network. From experience, we knew banners weren't going to do it. We could see how the network approach could build a search service, now we had to also design the programs to turn it into a profitable business as well.

Our first step was to define what a portal was. Without that definition, we really couldn't start building anything. Using most of the moderators and members of the old SEF, we were able to get enough input to feel comfortable defining a portal as a doorway into something specific. It could be anything from a doorway to the internet to a doorway into the world of stink bait. We decided the difference between a niche portal and a website was simply that the portal offered the opportunity for other people to interact with the site more than just though an order form. In order to offer that kind of interactivity and still be a doorway into the world of this specific topic, we would need to offer certain features that could all be focused around that topic. Those features included thing like personalized email, the ability to communicate with visitors through a newsletter or notice, a forum, a chat room, a classified ad program, auction software, and so forth. Things that would serve a community of like-minded people.

We also felt we needed to offer tools that helped the operator turn a buck. I have always believed that if a thing doesn't at least offer the hope of generating a profit, (keep in mind that profit could mean more than just money), it will eventually die and there is no point in pursuing it in the first place. So we also wanted ad rotation software, billing software and financial management tools.

Finally, we wanted to enable each operator to be a part of a network for the technical and financial support that the vast majority of small niche sites can not justify the expense of, yet be free to use the tools to control their own site the way they wanted. We did not want an army of followers; we wanted an army of leaders. Why? Because, always, it has been about the data. We wanted people who really did care about their chosen topic. We wanted people who were passionate because those were the people that really were in a position to determine relevancy and quality as it pertained to them. They would best serve the network by serving their own communities first.

This is where I have to admit that Lotso found me out. YES, my benefit was in getting the data. I'm caught by some real investigative research. Someone would have to actually read one of about 700 Portal Partner Press articles or a thousand or so posts I made saying, guess what? ---------- I want the data.

We were willing to give a LOT of benefits including trying to drive the traffic generated by having that data to the appropriate site and bear the bulk of the expenses for the infrastructure in exchange for it, but that's what we were going for. Top quality, human reviewed data that could be scalable to the web.


So, I need programs that allow you to have everything I have BUT, to change it anyway you like to suit your vision of a niche portal and not ours.

After several months of working with the local company that had built the first version of SK, I was about to give up. According to them I was looking at 24 to 36 months and cost of over $250,000. It wasn't the money so much, ( I felt I could generate that through our SEO services), but the time frame I could not come to terms with.

Then a fellow mod at SEF, Shane Dolby, contacted me and turned me onto Hyperseek. After less than an hour, I saw my answer.
For less than $2,000 there was just about everything I had been trying to figure out how to build. To this day I still get a little testy when I have people tell me that they can't afford the $2000 price tag of Hyperseek. If there was ever been a product released on the net that has more value for a smaller price, I have never seen it. It is far and away the most powerful, feature rich piece of software on the planet. It was a Godsend for me at the time.

It addressed almost every challenge we had. It had a mailman program. A forum. An ad rotation system and to this day, the most comprehensive directory building tool at any price. With Shane's help, (who had worked for John Cokos previously and knew Hyperseek inside and out), I made the deal and we were in business.

The second program we needed was a way to communicate with the core of the network. A chat room. After several different off-the-shelf pieces of junk ranging in price from free, (you wouldn't think you could get ripped off when it's free, but you can), to about $500. they all sucked. This ended up being our first in-house program and with the help of a pretty talented self-taught java coder we put one up within about 30 days. For almost a year I hosted a weekly chat but never really could offer the chat program as a shared program. It was very bland with few features and it had a tendency to crash. But the main reason I didn't pursue a shared chat program is because I quickly tired of the whole chat thing. I am of the mind that outside of cybersex, (and I much prefer the brick and mortar type), I just don't see a lot of value to chat rooms. The occasional joke or anecdote can be amusing but I never found a chat of much help in actually getting anything resolved or a strategy launched. Maybe that's just me.

Then the forums. The HS forum just wasn't really robust enough for our purposes so we ended up with another off-the-shelf. If memory serves it was a license from vbulletin or Infopop. Anyway, that worked out very well for a long time but not because of the software as much as because of the admin and the members using it. My experience has been that the software for the backbone of a community isn't nearly as important, (assuming it comes up and remains fast of course), as the people making up the community.

We had the search engine software and the communication tools and we were rolling. We were growing at an incredible rate and the more people seemed to need help, the more people there were willing to help them. I too was very focused and was spending a LOT of time trying to establish a connection between us all as a group. So much time in fact that our website promotion business often suffered. I always had to walk a very fine line because the SearchKing network was my passion but it was Magic-city that put bread on the table and paid for that passion. Be that as it may, we were certainly up and running.

Next came our affiliate software. Another very talented self-taught programmer built a really exceptional multi-tiered affiliate program. It really is very impressive. We had over 900 affiliates using the software so it was tested to death. We still have it but it’s not being used. I’ll talk about that in the mistakes post.

Now it came time to focus on generating substantial traffic to SearchKing.com so that we could start developing a marketing department. To get the traffic, according to our objectives and strategies, we had to answer that question of why anyone would search us instead of someone else and that meant gathering the data the portal partners had collected and displaying it in such a way as to give that perception of relevancy. Here my real problems started.

[massa]

The programs con't.

To date, I have gone through 9 programmers, sys admins and software project managers. 4 of them with at least one masters degree in computer science or computer engineering. All trying desperately to build three basic programs.

The search engine.
Consisting of an effective spider that we could offer to the network, an algorithm focused on using the input from the independent operators, a database that would store the full source code of up to 10 million urls.

We have this now and being tested. This is the new SearchKing search engine.

The ad delivery system.
This had to allow us to sell advertising in many forms, distribute it to the appropriate url based on a referrer, calculate pay outs, collect the money and then distribute the money to the partners. It also has to include a comprehensive stats program that all stakeholders could use and trust as a definitive source for reliable stats. Finally, it had to allow the portal partners to over-ride our system and only allow Network ads to display when they did not have an ad of their own sold. The idea was that we only took inventory you could not sell. We always encouraged everyone to make as much as they could make because again, the more money they made independent of the Network, the more quality you could rely on in their reviewed results.

This is Keyword Delivery. We have been using it now for almost three years. This is the program that we use that has gotten me accused of cloaking so many time. It is actually not cloaking. While the concepts are so closely related that I don't see the point in arguing, the difference is that it does not deliver content based on a user agent or IP. It delivers content based on a referrer. This program has helped Magic-city attain a conversion rate that far exceeds industry standards. It also provides a great stats programs.

BUT, after three years, it is still not complete. It is bulky, too unstable and way, WAY too much work to operate effectively.

Finally, a data delivery system.

This part we refer to as Portal Quick. It's purpose is to make sure that every partner always has results for any search. Also to a allow portal partners to start their own mini-network by being able to offer interested parties their own specific search results. Kind of a SearchKing on a smaller scale.

We developed this and released it as a beta but it was still based off of HS and I could not find the time, money or staff to devote to this to get it working properly. It basically needed to built from scratch. So we have it, it does do some of the things mentioned but it is not ready for prime time.

So, in a nutshell, the plan was built around three key pieces of software. The search engine/algo. The ad delivery and money management program and Portal Quick allowing the Network to share large volumes of data and maintain control of it to fit their individual preference and then share with that people in their own Network.

[massa]

The People.

Everything to this point really means very little. It is not much more than a feeble attempt to justify my own lack of technical ability. There could have been as many ways to approach the task at hand as there were people willing to do it. As long as the software does basically what the human using it expects it to do, the way it is programmed, the language it is written in, the server it sits on all means very little. The people using the programs is all that really matters.

SearchKing did not become what it was because of the programs. It became what it did in spite of the programs and the credit for what it became is all due to the people who invested of themselves.

We, as techno sociopaths, can sometimes tend to take for granted that we don't manipulate websites for traffic. We do it for our clients. We do it for people. I believe there is absolutely no reason for any technology to exist unless it serves humans. I can certainly see the possibility that I am in the minority and maybe even that I may end up being proven wrong. I can see the possibility for a "terminator" world looming in our future, but I will likely die believing in the concept that technology should serve man and not the other way around.

There are far too many people to name personally and I hate to leave anyone out because for those that contributed the least, they still deserve mention because they contributed. I will mention some that I feel really went above and beyond. Lynne, Jane Ellen, Dalton, Brad, Eddie, Curt, (anyone remember the admin election? Yikes !), Spider, Sandy, Dave, Dan, all of these people did so much for the community.

Of special note I would like to mention two individuals that I feel are deserving of a little extra credit.

One is John Cokos. It was mentioned earlier on that I should have "bit the bullet" and hired John. A statement born in haste I'm afraid. John doesn't want to work for me. I needed him much more than he needed me. I did try on two occasions to talk him into forming a partnership. In 1999, I offered him half of the SearchKing stock. That's how hard I tried.

He offered me support that I could not have expected from ANY other vendor. He always stood behind his product far more than was required in the licensing agreement. He did everything I could have ever expected to help me reach my goals. He put my objectives even above his own. I can't imagine ever finding a better software provider.

He also blew me away when we shared a podium at an internet conference in Las Vegas in 2000. His insight into the niche search engine market made me realize very quickly that I was not even in the running for the sharpest knife in the drawer.

I was also fortunate enough to share a moderators’ hat with him in SEF. I got to see how he handled his business, his supporters, his detractors, his friends and his community. There are very few people I've met in my life that have impressed me more.

As far as getting his help, #1, he doesn't owe me any help. I haven't paid anything to him since I bought the first license in 1999. I am in such desperate need of help right now that I did call him. I have not had a call back but I would suppose there is some bad blood there due to overlapping personal relationships but for whatever reason, it does not change my opinion of the man and the way he runs his business.

The other person I feel I should give some direct credit to was our webmaster/forum admin for several years. Not so much as webmaster. That is kind of like the programs. As long as people end up where they expected they would, the look of a website is pretty much up to the creative drive of the individual. He was better than some and worse than others BUT, if ever a person found a perfect match for their personality, it was him administering the community forums. He was the heartbeat and the backbone of the community. He was father figure and policeman. He dedicated himself to the task and had as much to do with shaping the Network as any other one individual.

This could easily be the longest post of them all, (I can almost hear Mackin groaning), but I will stop here with the hope that my intent will be clear. The intent to illustrate that rarely have so many given so much asking for so little in return. It truly is an exceptional group and I can never express my gratitude enough.

[JaneEllen]

Brief comment from the Peanut Gallery here, lol!

I've been a portal partner with Searchking since February of 2000 and would like to say that there is no other hosting/software provider on the internet that has offerred as much value and service as Searchking has over the years. The portal package that Bob has put together is just fantastic - no one else has even come close to providing the features packed into this package. Sure you can elect to swing it alone and buy your own copy of Hyperseek to the tune of $2K plus monthly hosting fees somewhere else - but you won't get all the features that SK has to offer, and you'll end up paying a ton more for it monthly.

Yes, we've had some down time and some hiccups - but so have any other hosting service that I've been involved with since 1995 - problems are bound to pop up no matter where you're hosted. With innovation comes strife - the enhancements and new modules that Bob and his team have developed all came with some learning and start-up curve - such is life in programming - very seldom do these things come out of the box with no user input required.

As far as the Google debacle - that is water over the dam, and clearly was an overstep on Google's part. My portals recovered rapidly and today sit at healthy PR 4's and 5's.

You can very easily upgrade your portals that are residing on subdomains (if you feel you are still suffering from PR0 disease) to top level domains - that is done for free by SK. My portals have always had their own domains - that is an option with SK too, you are not stuck with subdomains unless you choose to be.

As far as mining the data - you still own your own data - it is downloadable and transportable should you choose to leave SK hosting. I see no problem with the use of that data (the independently reviewed sites and descriptions) in the main SK engine whatsoever - that is an enhancement that makes your data more readily accessible to searchers looking for quality sites, and you do get credit for providing that data - your site is clearly listed as the reviewing site. This gives more exposure and traffic to your site and to the sites listed within your portal - everybody wins a little on this one.


Am sincerely hoping (and have all the confidence in the world) that the current round of server troubles will soon be over and SK will once again be the cadillac of servers and hosting services as it has always been, with more bang for the buck that any other hosting service on the planet. For some, who have sour grapes, I understand your frustration. It hasn't been easy over the years with SK - but at least I can say it's been worth it - from the dedicated and helpful user community on the forums, to the program enhancements and innovations, to the sheer value of getting full-fledged Hyperseek ranging from a very small hosting fee monthly to FREE.

[seobook]

SK will once again be the cadillac of servers and hosting services as it has always been
I have heard a few independant reviews which did not describe it that way.

the stuff Bob is writing here is really interesting though.

[mjr]

It was mentioned earlier on that I should have "bit the bullet" and hired John. A statement born in haste I'm afraid. John doesn't want to work for me. I needed him much more than he needed me. I did try on two occasions to talk him into forming a partnership. In 1999, I offered him half of the SearchKing stock. That's how hard I tried. Who said anything about him working for you? You're right I doubt he'd ever do that. I am talking about hiring/contracting him to FIX the mess that the SK version of the software has become. Knowing John as I do, I suspect he could straighten out the mess in short order. I have never understood why it is that you feel that these people have to work directly for you? You don't need employees, you need to get the problems fixed.

The concept of SearchKing has always been solid. It is the development of the concept that has always been your stumbling block. It has been your own paranoia of what you were wanting developed that has kept you handcuffed. It is that same paranoia that has caused you to alienate most of your most staunch supporters over the years. Those same people who shared the dream with the same passion, maybe even a deeper passion in some cases.

SearchKing should have reached fruition back in 2000 and would have if not for the shortcuts and the projects being added all the time that deluded the efforts of those working on the development, thus not much of any one thing ever got finished. IMHO the bottom line is simple, if searchking is to recover then all these problems must be fixed - step by step. You get John on the phone and hire him to fix the HyperSeek end of things and then go from there...actually the first thing to fix is your forums so that there can be an avenue of communication and then COMMUNICATE. Your clients want to know what's being done not a long-winded explanation why it happened or whose fault it was.

It is not important what mistakes were made in the past or who made them. What is important is that SK learn from those mistakes and move forward and sometime moving forward means starting from the begining. Bob you've always been a damn good salesman and have an eloquent way of manipulating people to your way of thinking, even to the point to where you generate a lot of sympathy. But at some point it is time to crap or get off the pot. :)

[lots0]

Don’t get me wrong folks, I think the idea behind searchking is a really great one and an idea that I still believe in.

I think the problem comes when you take a really great idea, like the idea behind sk, and then put the idea into use as a cover for other activities in a very cynical and calculating way.

No matter what anyone says, in my opinion, searchking was created for only one purpose - to acquire more unique pages, content and data to use for ranking other non-sk pages. (Just take a look at sk’s new PR0 front page)

It is not important what mistakes were made in the past or who made them.I disagree.

I believe that searchking is dying (despite massa’s attempt to resuscitate it here).

The company, Searchking, has been publicly marked by one of the biggest and most visible crusaders for getting rid of spam on the Internet (Google) as a “bad neighborhood” PageRank zero and sk is slowly being excluded from the Internet community (dying).

If it were not bad enough that Google has marked sk as search engine spammers, the sk management has left in its wake many unsatisfied, disgusted and often angry people, customers, vendors and employees alike.

SearchKing is the first case where google publicly chastised a company for its unethical actions (unethical as determined by google) by reducing then removing the entire domains PageRank.

Kind of ironic, imo, that sk used the motto, “Building a Better Web”.

I do feel for those, outside the sk inner circle, that have a financial interest in sk.

[massa]

The Mistakes

I'm sure there are at least 100 people that could author this chapter of the SearchKing History and we could all see a 100 different lists of mistakes I made. I'm also pretty sure that at least some of those lists would be quite lengthy. Since I am telling the story from my viewpoint, believe it or not, this list won't be nearly as long as some might expect.

Of course I made mistakes. There was no "how to build a portal" book for me to read. There was no network building adult education class I could take in my spare time. I basically had a vision of a viable alternative and with not much more than sheer determination I built something. Something big. Something I'm very proud of.

I did not however build anything that made a lot of money. In a business sense, it has been a total failure. I still believe it is a good investment. I think the future of niche directories is secure. I think there will always be a great deal of value to any form of data categorization driven by the passion and unique insight of an individual or small group of human beings all with a like-minded ideal of what is relevant to a specific topic. That means I also believe there is a very lucrative business proposition in providing tools and labor-saving services to this so-inclined market.

I'm the first to admit that talking of ideals and business in the same paragraph may seem a little oxy-moronic to some. It is not to me. I believe that everything must profit,( or at least break even), to exist. Keeping in mind that profit comes in many forms, money just being one form. Still, every action requires the expenditure of resources and without replacing those resources, (revenue generation for example), the action will eventually deplete all resources and the entity will cease to exist. If the resources are merely replenished, (breaking even), then eventually either the entity will change how it spends it's resources or it will accept that it will never grow and becomes satisfied with that which, in it's own way, is a form of profit.

So, in this context, I will point out three major mistakes that I believe I have made to this point that have the ideals of building a better web and building a profitable business intertwined.

Also, looking back over my outline I made for this post three days ago, I believe I will incorporate the regrets into this topic with one big one relating specifically to the network. I've been able to sleep on the regrets thing and realize now that I really only have one. That I have not yet hit my numbers. I am a very numbers oriented kind of person. I had objectives for the number of portal partners. The number of affiliates. The time line for having the programs done and the amount of revenue being generated. All of those numbers are far from being where I projected them in my last objectives and strategies document of July 2001. In my defense though, the numbers for the PR Ad Network projections are through the roof.

Mistake and Regret #1

I have always had a problem with authority. I also am a bit of a control freak, (all right maybe more than just a bit). Due to this fact, I
have difficulty delegating authority. Going back to the very beginning, one of the biggest mistakes I made was not recognizing my lack of education, knowledge or talent in certain areas and then recruiting and hiring people that had those qualities and then simply letting them do what they do.

Mistake and Regret #2.

Hyperseek.

As good as it is, it was never built to be a shared program. I used it because I became impatient. I had been trying to get the answers I wanted from the programming team I was using and I wasn't getting them. Based on my earliest projections, I was running out of time to launch and knowing that Hyperseek was not the ideal situation, I did it anyway. Even with my limited experience with programming, I should have made arrangements to modify and maintain the system much better.

Mistake and Regret #3.

I failed to find a way to monetize the niche directories. Here is an excerpt from a PPP article I wrote in June of 2002. Two months before we launched the PR Ad Network site.
******************************************
In my admittedly pompous opinion, the future of niche directories is completely and utterly doomed to extinction or at least to holding a firm grip on last place in the old respect and appreciation race, UNLESS SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE FIGURES OUT HOW TO MAKE A BUCK OUT OF RUNNING A PORTAL!

Running a portal takes money. It takes time, dedication, focus and commitment. They don't build themselves you know. It takes work and the better the directory is, the more work and resources it takes. So, where's the pay-off?

Of course there are those who become passionate enough, (or fanatical enough), about a specific topic to be willing to invest the time and money required to actually provide a resource of quality about that topic. There are also those who just want to help and there are those who simply become obsessed with having their say the way they want it said. Realistically, I figure this makes up a very small percentage of the net population.

People, (maybe not all people), not saints, not angels of the internet, just people, volunteer to edit for the ODP for a number of reasons, few of which are without their rewards. For some, it gives them the ability to manipulate their own listings within the directory to at least some degree. It gives some a sense of power. It gives some a chance to be in a group of like minded people where they can feel accepted. All these things are rewards, not the least of which is the ability to dominate, control, have power over and benefit from, commercial categories.

Editors at ODP get to put their own sites in. Motivation.

Editors at Yahoo get paid by the hour to work at Yahoo. Motivation.

One person to small companies running their own niche portal. Where's the motivation?

This, I believe, is the #1 question that has to be answered before the world can realistically expect small niche portals to become a driving force in the commercial realm of the net and realize their true potential. After the 1% or so of people who honestly are motivated to run a search service simply and totally for the love of the topic, what's in it for the mentally stable person who feels that their time is worth something? Those that feel they have a family to support, bills to pay and dreams to achieve?

Well, guess what, I believe I have an answer. SURPRISE! That answer is a network of portals with a revenue sharing program. To be more specific, SearchKing's network of portals with a revenue sharing program.

I'm not saying I have another get rich quick on the net scheme. The revenue sharing program I'm talking about does not have making anyone rich as it's objective. The only way to get rich from running a portal is to build it into a better resource with a better plan for generating revenue at a profit than your competitors.

I'm talking about a way that a person could sit in their chair, use their computer to spend only a few hours a week and make more money than they could with most affiliate programs on the net. A way to justify the time and money you would spend to get a portal rolling. A more fair and honest way to contribute something of quality without having to simply donate your time and money. A way to do a little work and get a little something back as a reward for your efforts.

I'm talking about a way of overcoming the two main obstacles holding the promise of niche directories back. I'm talking about a way of reducing the workload, making it much easier, faster and cheaper to build a quality directory and increasing the ability to generate revenue from that directory.
*****************************************

I was referring to the PR Ad Network then. I honestly thought I had finally found an answer to the single biggest challenge the network faced. Back in 2000, Google had removed all the SK third level domains from it's index. I sent them some emails, we discussed it, I showed them some examples and they placed all the portals back where they were. So, it had not even entered my mind that Google would penalize the network. In hindsight, that was a mistake that caused me to fail to be able to find a good way to monetize the network's portals. That is my biggest regret in regards the SK network.

[massa]

I'm getting close to being finished. I've only got the lawsuit and the plan left to go. After that I will answer any direct questions that can provide value but I will still very likely ignore the baseless accusations intended only to get a rise out of me. For the record let me state again:

I am not asking for any sympathy. Look kids, I sued Google and didn't die. Doesn't that tell you something? I really can't understand what bad thing everyone thinks is happening to me. I'm making a living, we have new employees, I have a beautiful new office. I don't see those things as deserving sympathy. SearchKing may or may not survive but I will. How many of you started a website 7 years ago that you no longer run? Are you trying to get sympathy? Well, neither am I. We're just talking about what happened to SearchKing and where I see it going. Nothing is dead.

As for the:
> (despite massa’s attempt to resuscitate it here).<
I am NOT trying to resuscitate it. I will explain in a little more detail in the last section but ask yourself this, "where are the links"? "where are the deals or the offers". I'm not selling anything. If I am, I'm a hell of a lot better at sales than even I think I am. How's this for a sales pitch:
MY ADVICE IS DO NOT CONSIDER BUYING A PORTAL HOSTING SERVICE FROM SEARCHKING

>searchking was created for only one purpose - to acquire more unique pages, content and data to use for ranking other non-sk pages. (Just take a look at sk’s new PR0 front page)<

That is not true. You are free to believe whatever you want to believe, but the truth is SearchKing was created for the exact purpose I have said it was over and over since 1999. Anyone willing to take the time to look or to ask would see that for themselves.

As for the front page, I'll explain a little better in the next post but the bottom line is that our website promotion business has sustained SearchKing from the beginning. SearchKing has never made a profit. All the money that has ever been put into Sk to cover any loss, came from my promotional business.

SearchKing still gets about 15,000 searches a day and I'm not going to waste that traffic just to try to prove I'm not a spammer. In Google's eyes I am and likely always will be. Ironically enough, so are you. The other thing is that SearchKing still needs revenue to survive and it will. It is not dying it is just changing and change costs money. That money is likely to come from the same place it has always come from. Our website promotion business.

Finally:
>I do feel for those, outside the sk inner circle, that have a financial interest in sk.<

There is no SK inner circle. Lotso and MJR were as much the inner circle as anyone. There is one other stockholder involved. The ONLY one that ever paid any actual money to acquire stock and I'm involved in a buy-out dispute with him that has already cost more money than it is worth.

There is no one with any other financial interest. I'm sure there are people that are disappointed that they aren't making more money but that is not the same thing as having to cover the cost of office supplies, utilities, servers, tech support and bandwidth. I'm the only one with that kind of financial interest.

I've made a lot of mistakes. I've said and done a lot of stupid things. I'm in a controversial business. I've had to make a lot of hard decisions and I've pissed a lot of people off. Surely there are real things you can find to use to get people to not like me.

Whatever I did that makes you so angry, I apologize. I'm very sorry to have lost mjr as a forums admin and lotso as an ally. If I knew what I could do or say to "fix it", I would, but I've been posting in forums long enough to know exactly how this is going to go. Acknowledging these attacks, just makes it worse. Now they will come hard and fast. Everything from I'm a thief and a liar to I raped your babies. The more I ignore them, the more outlandish they will get. It's a little hard to take but I'm sure the poster feels justified. I'm sorry for that too.

I still believe that I can offer some useful information to anyone with an interest in running a niche directory, building a network or just running a web business. So I will finish what I started as a gesture of gratitude for the leniency shown me by the mods and admins, but I will not respond to any more accusations. Anyone is free to point out what I did wrong, how it should get fixed or why listening to me will bring you ruin. Just remember, telling someone how stupid they are does not make you any smarter.

[massa]

The Lawsuit.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, the lawsuit was not a mistake. The mistake was in the way I handled the public relations and some of the decisions I made based on the advice of my lawyers.

What Google did was wrong. There were a thousand ways that Google could have handled the situation that would have made it clear that they knew those partners were independent and had nothing to do with my decision to start the PR Ad Network. They didn't and that was not fair to those people.

I still believe that passing judgement and making decisions that could affect people's livelihood without due process is wrong. I even feel that what they did to Traffic Power was wrong. Traffic Power may be the epitome of evil but I believe before they do something that affects hundreds of people, they could at least take two minutes to notify them of intent.

In my case, I had sent emails directly to Google explaining my situation, my intent and asking for permission. They never responded. I said in two net media publications that if Google didn't like me offering a service like PR Ad Network, all they had to do was say so and I wouldn't do it. No response. I discussed my plans on several prominent forums where I was confident my comments would be seen by Googleguy yet Googleguy never addressed it. One sentence from Googleguy could have changed the entire situation. When I think of all the silly things that do get responded to, I don't think a response was too much to ask for. Even now,
"hey Googleguy, would a little statement from you saying that the negative perception against those who had SearchKing as a host is regrettable, really hurt anything?"
(Seriously GG, I don't expect that at all. I would dearly love it but I certainly don't expect it. Peace)

As for why I did it, try to imagine Danny doing something he could see plenty of others doing but when he did it, Google took some action that wiped out the page rank and placements of all the members on this board. How do you think he would feel? Do you think he may feel like fighting for the members? We speak of buying links for PR. Should we all be afraid? Of course not !

A lawsuit was not a totally foreign concept to me. I had several conversations with key people in SearchKing about promotion tactics and one of the strategies that had been discussed was a lawsuit. I don't recall Google ever coming up but Yahoo certainly did. But, when it all happened, I sued because I was pissed. I felt a moral obligation to defend the rights of the portal partners and I honestly felt that Google had gone too far. I have little doubt that my emotions may have clouded my judgement.

My regret is that I was not able to get the focus on the abuse of power and restraint of trade issue. The world latched onto the question of whether Google had a right to list sites any way they wanted and that I was attempting to spam Google by selling page rank. I stated several times that I too believed Google had a right to list sites any way they wanted the same as I believed I had the same right and so did all the niche portals. I also said over and over that I was not selling page rank, that only Google controlled page rank, but it seemed like not many heard that.

When my lawyers first brought me the injunction they were going to file, I read it and was a little uncomfortable that it didn't explain things as clearly as I had hoped it would. After they convinced me to be very careful presenting tech issues to a federal judge, I approved the injunction on their advice and now regret it dearly. After the injunction was filed there wasn't much the PR firm we had could do to change the message.

I sued partly because I felt Google was using their power and influence to restrain trade but mostly because they would not respond. I felt they were being arrogant to the extreme. I felt they were being unfair and I felt that I needed some help. The whole thing would have never happened if they had just sent me an email with two words.

Stop it.

Did I sue for the money?
No. I knew $75,000 wouldn't even cover legal expenses. In the state of Oklahoma at least, (I assume it is the same all over the country because it was federal court), there has to be a minimum of $75,000 damage to file for an injunction. An injunction was what we wanted because the court could have found in our favor and they would have had to restore the page rank and not been able to do anything else to any SearchKing property until after a lawsuit, which could have taken years.

Only in hindsight do I see now why Google put so much focus into the whole freedom of speech thing. Had I won that injunction, it would have taken away their right to control their own database. That could have been the catalysrt for a lot more injunctions. It may have also given me access to their source code. YIKES! Think I might have picked up a client or two with that? Anyway, THAT was the big mistake. I was only thinking of vindicating the portal partners when wanting the PR restored and not seeing the problem from Google's perspective. Looking back, I think that when they put SK's PR back to a 4 they kind of were apologizing but I was still too filled with that righteous indignation, (also up to my neck in debt to my lawyers), to see it that way. Keep in mind, the phone was ringing off the hook and we were brokering links to beat the band. How bad did I really want to stop?

Did I really think I was going to win?
Well here is what I wrote in the PPP on October 17th, just a few days before we filed.
*******************************
So, can I win?

As far as the lawsuit, I have some doubts. I believe they are going to send some of the most tech savvy, go for the throat, silicon valley lawyers on the planet to Oklahoma City with the promise of a big bonus if they don't just win the case but maybe rough me up a bit while they're here. I believe they will be coming to kick my as*!
*************************

History kind of bore me out there. They did kick my ass. I was wrong about the silicon valley lawyers coming here though. I think they figured why waste the money. They just hired a local guy and told him what to say.

Do I regret suing them now?
Yes. I have always wished there would have been another way. My biggest regret is that as much as I enjoy attending the SES and Pubcons, I always feel like I have to keep a low profile. I've been to several but I always kind of slink around in the shadows. I enjoyed being part of a group that I now feel outside of. I miss it.

I wouldn't feel comfortable hangin around with you in front of Google if you sued them. I don't like putting my peers and people I truly respect in a position of having to choose between acting like they don't me or having to be afraid Google might not like them talking to me. Let's face it, we all need Google much more than Google needs us. So, I don't go to the places where SEO's and Google goes and Google pretty much goes everywhere SEO's go.

In Florida, I sat up to almost 6 in the morning with about a dozen of us just sharing SEO war stories, but I did not attend pubcon. That night was absolutely great. I enjoy talking about this stuff with people who understand what I'm saying as much as any SEMPO member.

In London, I told a barmaid I wished I could buy every spammer in the joint a link. I guess she thought I said drink because a little while later she was walking around asking everyone if they were a spammer and every person that 'fessed up got a free beer and I got a thousand dollar bar tab. Great memory but I didn't attend Pubcon because I didn't want to be treated like the ugly step-child or put anyone in a compromising position. Had it not been for the lawsuit, I would feel free to go and get just as drunk as anyone else. I would have the same excuse for being loud and obnoxious as any other spam *** err, attendee. As it is, I have no excuse.

There is also a public perception that Google doesn't like SearchKing, (personally I don't think Google thinks much about SK one way or the other), and that may be keeping some people who would like to build a niche directory with one less resource.

Would I do it again?

In a heartbeat !

[seobook]

I wouldn't feel comfortable hangin around with you in front of Google if you sued them. I don't like putting my peers and people I truly respect in a position of having to choose between acting like they don't me or having to be afraid Google might not like them talking to me. Let's face it, we all need Google much more than Google needs us. So, I don't go to the places where SEO's and Google goes and Google pretty much goes everywhere SEO's go.

Do you really think Google would penalize people's sites just for them talking to you? I think to them the issue is probably water under the bridge, but because it had such a large effect on you you perhaps continue to see it as a bigger deal than it is?

[massa]

You're right SEObook. I probably didn't make it very clear but I was actually talking in the past sense. That's why I made that comment about them actually not caring much one way or the other.

I'm actually looking forward to an upcoming event, (I really hated missing the SEO roadshow), because I think you are right.

[MrMackin]

>I really hated missing the SEO roadshow

That will be another thread and THIS thread should stop at page #3 or NickW will be correct and I don't want that :cool:

[mick g]

In Florida, I sat up to almost 6 in the morning with about a dozen of us just sharing SEO war stories, but I did not attend pubcon. That night was absolutely great. I enjoy talking about this stuff with people who understand what I'm saying as much as any SEMPO member.

Bob I was one of the dozen and you did keep us entertained for hours that night, what ever happens I am sure it will work out for you and I wish you well in the future.

Take care and I am sure we will meet up again.

PS It's too easy to call people when the chips are down, it's times like this you really do find out who your true friends really are.

[mjr]

Hyperseek.

As good as it is, it was never built to be a shared program. I used it because I became impatient. I had been trying to get the answers I wanted from the programming team I was using and I wasn't getting them. Based on my earliest projections, I was running out of time to launch and knowing that Hyperseek was not the ideal situation, I did it anyway. Even with my limited experience with programming, I should have made arrangements to modify and maintain the system much better.
Yes, and you were advised not to go with HyperSeek (do you remember our conversation) but you tend to be impatient (as you've already stated) and take the shortcut.


There is one other stockholder involved. The ONLY one that ever paid any actual money to acquire stock and I'm involved in a buy-out dispute with him that has already cost more money than it is worth.
You're correct, I dumped my shares of SearchKing stock on advise of my attorney. the only one that paid any actual money?? What, you forget the year I worked for free? Was that not worth a few bucks...please.

Whatever I did that makes you so angry, I apologize. I'm very sorry to have lost mjr as a forums admin...


Please don't try and play me down as some kind forums admin when you know darn well that there was a LOT more to it than that.

The more I ignore them, the more outlandish they will get. It's a little hard to take but I'm sure the poster feels justified. I'm sorry for that too LOL!!! Now that is really funny coming from you. Are you really that arrogant Bob - don't flatter yourself :)

The Lawsuit.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, the lawsuit was not a mistake. The mistake was in the way I handled the public relations and some of the decisions I made based on the advice of my lawyers.

What Google did was wrong. There were a thousand ways that Google could have handled the situation that would have made it clear that they knew those partners were independent and had nothing to do with my decision to start the PR Ad Network. They didn't and that was not fair to those people.

Post edited to fit the quote

Would I do it again?

In a heartbeat ! Oh brother, I'm sorry Bob, but you forget I was there, I was at the staff meetings, all of them and you made it very clear what your objectives were and those weren't any of them. I knew exactly what you were doing and this hype is nothing more than the same damage control you have been tossing around for months now. The point is I'm not going to let you get away with your shaded display of the truth. I really don't want this thread to degrade anymore than it already has. But you exasperate people that know the truth and thus it makes it hard to rein in the emotions and not make it personal.

I was trying to make an honest attempt to bring positive input into the thread. But once again in your paranoia your doing damage control that really isn't necessary. As I basically pointed to you in the Private Message you sent me from these boards, you are your own worst enemy and eventually you will self-distruct and frankly I just don't have the time to play the Massa game. If you sincerely want help and input let us know.

Mike

[massa]

The Plan and What I See as the Future of Niche Directories.

Starting the Independent Niche Directory Network was the first move of the new plan. The plan is simple. Stop trying to be all things to all people and make the network inclusive instead of exclusive. I have no intention of offering a shared portal program any longer. I will put the servers back up. I will get Hyperseek running again and I will continue giving hosting to existing clients, because that is the deal I made when we took the order. But, we will no longer promote the concept or provide tech support on an individual basis.

We don't want it to be a SearchKing network. We want to simply provide sales, management and data software and services to anyone running a website that wants to offer some type of search on their site.

From now on, people who want to build a community will have to get their forum software from people who can support that software. They will have to get their chat and email programs from people who sell that. Same goes for just about any application outside of running and making money from a niche search engine. That eliminates a great deal of expense for tech support that can go to programming.

What we will do is provide data retrieval, data storage and an admin interface giving control of the algorithm to the end user. We will provide viral search engine software that will enable each directory operator to offer his own branded results to anyone he likes.

SearchKing will become a search engine, tracking software development and marketing company. That is what the change to the front page is about. The front page has a long way to go but that is the first steps in that direction. We have to keep selling and generating revenue or we will die. We will do that by providing tools and services to an industry we know well.

What we will do over the next few months is provide anyone with a free spider to help them collect data relative to a specific set of parameters. We believe the trick to spidering effectively is not to waste the data that does NOT match the search criteria. We have found that when spidering for specific information, you may very well have to go through a million urls to get the one you want. Just because you didn't want any of the other million, it is very likely someone else would have. So, the free spider will deposit everything a directory operator does not want into a holding database. The next search always starts at that database.

To clarify, you would download a program that would give you an admin panel. You would enter in keywords and where to look for them in a source code, select a starting url and hit enter. The spider would start searching by going to only one url from the target and following links wherever the links takes it until it collects up to 25 or 50 appropriate urls. Everything it grabs that does NOT match goes into a "holding" database. The spider would then place the 50 urls into a file where you could click on a link and review the page. You would have to either accept or reject the page to remove it from the file. If you accept it goes into your own directory where you have pre-built an algorithm. If you reject, it goes to the holding database. Once the file has been deleted, you could start another search.

Kind of like a DMOZ on steroids giving away data.

In the tests we have done so far, the holding database gets very big very fast and by always searching that first, it is fast and doesn't use the resources of a third party more than just the one hit.

I believe all of us having and giving opinions is woven into the very fiber of the human condition. We are humans and that is just what we do. Good, bad, loving, hating, being nice, being mean, being young or old, American or African. We all have opinions and THAT is relevancy to each of us. What we believe is truth is. For those that agree with us, that is relevancy.

What link popularity does is just move the limitations of on-site optimization onto off-site. I love link popularity because it was the first thing in quite a while that was developed to focus on ADDING points to good stuff as opposed to building filters to SUBTACT points from the bad stuff. I personally believe that is what helped Google take off so quickly and soar so high. That and the 10,000 cheap servers getting them to 1,000,000,000+ pages. But now we've all seen the Google algorithm suffer lately while they are putting more and more effort into controlling link popularity by creating filters again.

I'm the first to admit that I do then to think outside the box but I believe the problem arises in trying to control it. Anything that you can control, someone can probably subvert. Again, that is what humans do. What Google and all search engine programmers are basically trying to do is use the emotional responses of humans and convert that into an equation. In other words, use the unique ability of a human being to give an opinion without giving that human being credit for it. No one can spam a human being who cares enough to look and search engine programmers know it. If they didn't, link popularity would be a factor.

I believe technology is far from being able to replace those emotional responses that actually do determine relevancy and that means to me that niche directories with humans reviewing data have a bright future. The challenge is still the same as it was when I wrote those articles about monetizing the niche directories. One or both of two things need to happen and whoever figures out how to do it will likely reap a great reward.

Dramatically reduce the time and effort required to gather, review and deliver sorted, relevant data and/or offer at least the hope of being fairly compensated for the effort.

Thank you for the time and the outlet. Anyone with questions, especially portal partners, is free to email me personally, (I know that works), at bobking@searchKing.com

If there is anyone wanting to discuss any of my opinions or comments, please start another thread and let this one finish. I don't see any point in discussing this issue as it pretains to SearchKing any longer.

[DanThies]

Well, Bob... it's interesting to see another version of the story. I'll skip the temptation to editorialize on that, other than to say how surprised I am that a lack of technical proficiency was such a handicap.

The funniest thing about the story, I mean the real punchline, is that someone did figure out how a person could make money running a niche portal. That "someone" is Google, and the solution is called Adsense.

[massa]

>The funniest thing about the story, I mean the real punchline, is that someone did figure out how a person could make money running a niche portal. That "someone" is Google, and the solution is called Adsense.<

You're absolutely right.

>other than to say how surprised I am that a lack of technical proficiency was such a handicap. <

Not half as surprised as I am. Had I ever dreamed it would be so difficult to simply keep the servers running and secure I would not have considered it. After five years, we still can not seem to figure out why hyperseek keeps opening processes and not closing them until if finally either crashes Tomcat or Apache.

Hackers getting in isn't that big of a surprise. It happens. What kills us when it does is having to move and re-install Tomcat and hyperseek again. This is the third time we've had to do it and we're doing SOMETHING wrong every time.

[RodB]

well Bob i am interested in the spider. I am far more interested in getting the existing backup facility working on the existing portals. Its making me quake right now.

[Dreamshop]

Wow...reading this thread has given me an ice cream headache! :p


Funny enough I was in Oklahoma in 1997 and put together a niche directory that was accessible via an annual subscription. People WILL pay for information...if you're giving them what they want. I sold that business in 2000 and it's still running today. The business model itself is still very viable.


What hits me as I read through this is the lack of accountability.

At some point, when you're running a business (or even a philothropic adventure), the person in charge has to step up to the plate and be willing to admit that things aren't being handled correctly and need to change. To keep throwing money at something with so many obvious problems is just downright silly. You shouldn't be regretful in 2004 that you didn't hit your numbers in 2001! You should have dealt with that back at the time it was a problem!

Someone else mentioned their suprise that the "lack of technical proficiency was such a handicap."

What I see is simply a lack of business acumen.

ALL businesses have technical problems, staffing problems, money problems....what makes them successful is good business leadership and planning. If you keep doing the same things, you just get the same results. Being a great visionary, or industry leader, or seo expert, does not make you a great business person. This isn't a reflection of just Massa...it's something all entrepreneurs struggle with. It's hard for the "idea" person to also be the manager and the accountant, simply because they can't step back far enough from their concept to grasp the reality of business.


This is the perfect example...."I did not however build anything that made a lot of money. In a business sense, it has been a total failure. I still believe it is a good investment. "

In the same sentence you admit the business is a failure, yet you're still clinging to how great your concept is. I'm sorry, but if the idea can't sustain itself then it's NOT a good investment. It may still be a great idea...but it's defintely not a good financial investment...especially after plugging away at for so long, and having thrown so much money at it.


I sincerely appreciate the time you took to share your story massa...but I also hope that you will take the time to also learn from it. Your customers are here trying to communicate with you...but really what you're doing is just "talking at" them. There comes a time when you have to swallow your pride, and start listening and utilizing other people's ideas. Since they're already a part of your business why not let them play a part in the transition? Changing things without keeping them in the loop will just alienate them, and cause some pretty significant backlashes.

[I speak from experience on this one...we all have our moments and struggles with growth. We're all human.]


Certainly this is an awesome thread that any business owner could gain some valuable insight from.

[DanThies]

Yes, there are some fine moderators here.

[massa]

Dreamshop, my pride would like to argue with you, but my logic can't find a single place where I honestly think your wrong.

I too feel that it was primarily a lack of business acumen. I was in way over my head and trying to put out more fires each day when I probably should have hired people qualifed to deal with specific flames and let them do it. Hindsight is 20/20.

I am glad that at least someone saw the post for what it was. It is not easy to allow yourself to be scrutinized and forced to accept your own shortcomings. I did in the hopes that I may save someone else from the same mistakes.

The only response I can give in my defense is:
>the person in charge has to step up to the plate and be willing to admit that things aren't being handled correctly and need to change.<

I have never shirked my responsiblity. To this day, I blame no one but myself. I am accountable. It is my fault.

I feel dreamshop is also right about the communication. One of the things that was right about the portal network was the communication. I didn't speak to the members, I spoke with them and more importantly I listened.

One of the mistakes I should have listed was that I had a PR firm that convinced me that one of the major problems, was there was no separation from Bob and Searchking. It was seen as one and the same. It made sense at the time because you never see anyone say, " Boy Larry Page doesn't have the relevancy he used to", or "Sergey has over 8 billion documents now". We all see Google as one thing and the people involved with Google as separate entities. It sounded logical at the time.

The mistake I made was, I ain't google! Communication may have been the ONLY thing I did right and I stopped doing that.

Finally, I don't want anyone to think that niche portals are a bad investment. I still have a vested interest in seeing the niche industry grow. So the reference Dreamshop made,
>In the same sentence you admit the business is a failure, yet you're still clinging to how great your concept is. I'm sorry, but if the idea can't sustain itself then it's NOT a good investment. <

I don't see it as "MY" concept. I wasn't the first to think of a shared database and the investment I was referring to was not my business, but the niche directory industry. I do think the niche directory industry is a good investment.

[DanThies]

Dreamshop,

I'd have to say that losing money doesn't make it a bad investment. It just makes it a poorly managed one. The concept is still valid today, but if Bob wants to take another bite at the apple (obscure reference to the lawsuit, sorry) he's going to have to plan and execute a heck of a lot better.

A lot of good people put a lot of energy into developing portal sites on the SK network. The PRAN scheme really damaged that - whether you agree with what Google did or not, it should not have taken anyone by surprise. To me, that was the biggest mistake, but it seems to have been born of desperation after the business had already failed.

Today, with all the open source portal systems like Postnuke and XOOPS, you could build the whole thing much faster, much cheaper, and give the portal publishers better tools to work with. With RSS, it's a lot easier to find and integrate useful content - the portals don't have to be just a collection of links.

SK's execution on technology does look like the main culprit - putting one band-aid after another on top of bad solutions; changing the plan constantly; adding new features to broken systems; always looking for the magic "one more thing" that would make the dream come true.

[mjr]

Wow...reading this thread has given me an ice cream headache! :p


Funny enough I was in Oklahoma in 1997 and put together a niche directory that was accessible via an annual subscription. People WILL pay for information...if you're giving them what they want. I sold that business in 2000 and it's still running today. The business model itself is still very viable.


What hits me as I read through this is the lack of accountability.

At some point, when you're running a business (or even a philothropic adventure), the person in charge has to step up to the plate and be willing to admit that things aren't being handled correctly and need to change. To keep throwing money at something with so many obvious problems is just downright silly. You shouldn't be regretful in 2004 that you didn't hit your numbers in 2001! You should have dealt with that back at the time it was a problem!

Someone else mentioned their suprise that the "lack of technical proficiency was such a handicap."

What I see is simply a lack of business acumen.

ALL businesses have technical problems, staffing problems, money problems....what makes them successful is good business leadership and planning. If you keep doing the same things, you just get the same results. Being a great visionary, or industry leader, or seo expert, does not make you a great business person. This isn't a reflection of just Massa...it's something all entrepreneurs struggle with. It's hard for the "idea" person to also be the manager and the accountant, simply because they can't step back far enough from their concept to grasp the reality of business.


This is the perfect example...."I did not however build anything that made a lot of money. In a business sense, it has been a total failure. I still believe it is a good investment. "

In the same sentence you admit the business is a failure, yet you're still clinging to how great your concept is. I'm sorry, but if the idea can't sustain itself then it's NOT a good investment. It may still be a great idea...but it's defintely not a good financial investment...especially after plugging away at for so long, and having thrown so much money at it.


I sincerely appreciate the time you took to share your story massa...but I also hope that you will take the time to also learn from it. Your customers are here trying to communicate with you...but really what you're doing is just "talking at" them. There comes a time when you have to swallow your pride, and start listening and utilizing other people's ideas. Since they're already a part of your business why not let them play a part in the transition? Changing things without keeping them in the loop will just alienate them, and cause some pretty significant backlashes.

[I speak from experience on this one...we all have our moments and struggles with growth. We're all human.]


Certainly this is an awesome thread that any business owner could gain some valuable insight from.

Add a touch of self-centered arogant pride and you've hit on this situation exactly. Well said, very good post :)

[mjr]

Today, with all the open source portal systems like Postnuke and XOOPS, you could build the whole thing much faster, much cheaper, and give the portal publishers better tools to work with. With RSS, it's a lot easier to find and integrate useful content - the portals don't have to be just a collection of links.
Dan, these open source portal systems that you mention are very limited by comparison. The SK portal system was (is?) a much more robust and powerful system, thus the popularity of its users. The concept of a topic specific niche directory network is a very good one. It will simply take someone with the technical, business and people skills to bring it all together, or at least somone that understands that you don't have to know how to run these things, just have people around you that do and then to listen to them :)

[DanThies]

Dan, these open source portal systems that you mention are very limited by comparison. The SK portal system was (is?) a much more robust and powerful system, thus the popularity of its users.
I don't know about that, Mike. I'm willing to become better informed on this, because I never bought a portal from SearchKing. However, I don't see anything in the feature list published on searchkingportal4u.com that you couldn't do with plug and play modules on these content management systems.

There are also a lot of modules that SK doesn't have (like shopping carts, auctions, RSS feed creation), that are just plug and play. If there is something else you need, it's not too hard to create new modules, or to extend/modify an existing module.
The concept of a topic specific niche directory network is a very good one. It will simply take someone with the technical, business and people skills to bring it all together, or at least somone that understands that you don't have to know how to run these things, just have people around you that do and then to listen to them :)
Yes, although I think one of Bob's problems may be a weak BS filter. Sometimes people who know "how" don't always have a good handle on "why."

[Brad]

Communication may have been the ONLY thing I did right and I stopped doing that.

It's a critical mistake. When you quit communicating it creates an information vacuum. People will fill up those vacuums with their own answers and explanations if you do not - and the customers' answers are not likely to be in your favor if you are silent when the smelly-stuff is hitting the fan. :eek:

[mjr]

There are also a lot of modules that SK doesn't have (like shopping carts, auctions, RSS feed creation), that are just plug and play. If there is something else you need, it's not too hard to create new modules, or to extend/modify an existing module. That being said, you CAN add these same types of features as well. The ability to create a specialized directory (and Search Engine) I guess is the big selling point. Being part of a Network of like-minded people is another. In the beginning, all of these portals were also a BIG part of the SearchKing.com search engine and Directory with the idea of the portals being found on top of a given topic in the search and made up the SK directory exclusively - basically bringing *experts* in their specialized fields under one roof. This is something you will not be likely to find with any other off-the-shelf portal system.

In the beginning as SK was growing, you could come to the directory and find everything from dolls to a small town in Montana. Unfortunately from that point on Massa began trying to climb Mount Everest without shoes and his supporters were left at the base camp :)

[DanThies]

This is something you will not be likely to find with any other off-the-shelf portal system.
I wouldn't suggest giving folks an off the shelf, default install of XOOPS or whatever. I'd build a custom install that already included all the modules they'd need, with any of the add-ons they might want (like shopping carts) a click away. For a search engine, you've got a choice of PHPDig or Mngosearch, as plugin modules, several different directory modules, RSS publishing (both publishing your content and including content from other sites), etc.

It's actually very easy to build a community of sites with these systems. You can share whatever you want - search databases, even user logins across multiple sites. It doesn't work like that "out of the box," but you wouldn't be giving people an out-of-the-box version.
Unfortunately from that point on Massa began trying to climb Mount Everest without shoes and his supporters were left at the base camp :)
Sounds like an apt description, from the perspective of the portal publishers.

[topukatopuka]

niche directory.. the only place where I hear stuff like this is in sorry forums like this. Where "CEO" massa posts it. Ha Ha. I would assume a "CEO" would have more work to do than to be posting here. Does that give somebody a hint why it is not working. Duh!

[mjr]

I have a working hacked copy of XOOPS (somewhere). I was exploring the possibility of using it for a portal plug-in for a project I have been working on for the last 18 months (hint..topicfind.com). We have scraped the idea of using any version of XOOPS. However I will admit it gave me some very good ideas for scripts that I am having built to work off what we've developed. We keep pushing back the launch date as I am unwilling to bring an undeveloped product online much like *someone* else did - want all those ducks in a row first :) Although we will be bringing phase one online soon and let the plug-in stuff catch up later...

OK, drifting off topic a little here. My point here is that what SearchKing developed initially should not be sold short. It was a very powerful program, and given you could get your own working copy for free, it made it real tough to beat. Will SK recover their dream? I seriously doubt it. There has been too much damage and little damage control. SK's reputation will likely never recover. Those hanging on won't for much longer I'm afraid without better communication. SK was on the verge of breaking that market wide open and had some VERY good people involved - too bad really. :(

[Brad]

Back when SK started there were not the choices of software scripts there are today. Everything was written in Perl or ASP at that time and PHP/mySQL scripts had not yet come into common usage.

What SK did was take one installation of Hyperseek and share it across hundreds of subdomains and domains on each server. It brought the individual costs down to a level the common person could afford. It was a breakthrough at the time.

There are some major problems with that arrangement:

1. The script is robust, amazingly so, however it was just never intended to be shared like that. Some features failed to scale and it could be - quirky. :)

2. Shared like it was it meant when one thing went wrong it effected hundreds of sites. That might not have seemed like a huge problem in beta testing but once there were thousands of sites the ripple effects of a malfunction could be huge.

3. High learning curve. Once SK started appealing to folks upgrading from Tripod, Geocities and Homestead (myself included) the support and logistics load had to increase tremendously.

4. Locked in. Shared script meant both SK and the customer was locked in to a proprietary system and no software upgrade path. Time marched on - but SK cannot. Hosting got cheaper. Scripts got better, easier but elsewhere, not at SK.

I'll stick with the technical list - the managment problems I'll leave to others to dissect.

One thing I will mention is that Bob did have some good ideas. He was willing to try a different approach by encourging and trying to build up and network niche directory search. I think somebody described it recently as starting out as something like The Mining Co. (nka About.com) only each expert owned their own niche portal. Back in 1998-1999 that idea had a lot of merit and might still have it today.

Bob: Even though this would effect me personally I'll say it anyway. I think you have to migrate people away from the SK subdomains. Between the constant server problems and the Google ban - they are dead - or barely still on life support. The domains might still have a chance if they are not penalized by Google. Give those customers some information about migrating: what scripts are good, where to find hosting, how to download and parse their database, and a couple of months warning and then end it. I think they would appreciate the candor and communication rather than chronic uncertainty.

(Gee, now I'm making long posts!) :eek:

niche directory.. the only place where I hear stuff like this is in sorry forums like this. Where "CEO" massa posts it. Ha Ha. I would assume a "CEO" would have more work to do than to be posting here. Does that give somebody a hint why it is not working. Duh!

Sorry but that is just wrong. I have every reason to beat up on massa here too. You'll have to stand in line. But the entire internet is about communication - if anything, CEO's should be communicating more, not less. And massa is a member here - he contributes. You don't have to like him, but every member deserves common courtesy.

[DanThies]

Mike,

I'm certainly not suggesting that the feature set, the intent of the application, should be scrapped. But it's architecture that failed, more than anything else. Closed design, closed applications, features layered on top of each other.

It's been pointed out that Hyperseek wasn't intended to be a shared search engine, but as far as I can tell, even Hyperseek is capable of storing the sort of data you'd want for a shared search. If I were building it *today* I'd use a web services model:

1) You need a search service that accepts a search term and an optional site parameter, so users can search "everything" or just a give site's resources. A portal site passes the query to the web service, and gets results back.
2) You need an indexing service that accepts a URL and a site parameter, so that portals can pass off URLs to be indexed by the search engine.

I would probably wouldn't use Hyperseek for the search application server, but that's really beside the point.

Whatever the design, I don't see how anyone could possibly resurrect "SearchKing.com." PRAN killed it. It's dead. Even if Google decided that they loved SearchKing, it wouldn't change the reputation. Especially since the SearchKing home page links to a "service" that offers 'auto generated links.' Bob sure does love the taste of spam.

[topukatopuka]

Whatever the design, I don't see how anyone could possibly resurrect "SearchKing.com." PRAN killed it. It's dead. Even if Google decided that they loved SearchKing, it wouldn't change the reputation. Especially since the SearchKing home page links to a "service" that offers 'auto generated links.' Bob sure does love the taste of spam.

Searchking is dead alright. I wonder if any of their other services are any good. Their search has been returning an 'internal server error' for the past two days. Get to work "CEO" massa!

[mjr]

I'll throw a little fact your way...SearchKing was left to die. Frankly if Bob could have figured out a way to pull the plug without everyone blaming him it would have been pulled long ago. He never really figured out how to make money from SearchKing even though the obvious always starred him in the face. It IS too bad really because as I've already said the concept is sound and warrants the blue ribbon. It unfortunately is the rest of the equation that sucks.

A lot of people really got screwed putting their trust in the system and in the man. I think that most of the network saw the hand writing on the wall the first time the network crashed and then were witness to portal owners having the plug pulled on their portals when they raised a ruckus. Most of the staunches supporters have already given up on their portals (or had them taken away).

There is no point in bashing Bob that wound was self-inflicted many months ago. SearchKing will never be remembered for taking on Google they'll only be remembered as a major Internet flop. SearchKing nor Bob will ever recover their once applauded reputations. Bob was once hailed as a visionary, a pioneer and had earned the respect of whose who on the Net. Everyone will have their own opinions, but I lived the dream of SearchKing from the inside and I for at least one will have trouble ever trusting him again.

[topukatopuka]

today search on searchking.com is giving HTTP Status 404 error. "CEO" massa get to work.. or maybe searchking just lost the battle of survival (i think it had lost it a long time ago.. "CEO" massa just accepted it and went home.. good for him).

[Blind Freddy]

Seems like they're back from the dead - the searchking site is available again.

I just found this thread on Google. And it explains why my paid forum of 3 years standing has been not working for over 3 weeks. (Sad about the promotional campaign that I had begun just before the lights went out)

Communication from Searchking has been non existent.
Surely they have a backup list of their clients which they can use to send out an email letting them know what is going on.
I've had no response to emails to tech support, webmaster, or even Mr. Massa himself. Nor to a request to I-Cop, where Mr Massa's white hat touches the ceiling.

I'm sorry it's all gone belly up.
Searchking was a good service - one which I could not duplicate without buying hyperseek, which was out of the question for the free sevice that I was providing.

OK, I have to assume that Searchking is not coming back anytime real soon.

People have commented that a CMS can duplicate the portal aspects of Searchking.
Is it practicable to import data from a hyperseek backup into a CMS (perhaps Mambo? )
Has anyone done it?
Roughly what was involved?

Regards,
Eric G.

[Brad]

Is it practicable to import data from a hyperseek backup into a CMS (perhaps Mambo? )

Yes. I do not know how to do it myself, but there are people that can parse Hyperseek backups into other directory script formats.

I can't speak for the CMS's and I don't know about Mambo specifically. The problem with most CMS scripts is they do not spider all that well. Some can be made to be more SE freindly, but that might require some custom hacks. But there are certainly other directory scripts.

[Marcia]

>>Is it practicable to import data from a hyperseek backup into a CMS (perhaps Mambo? )

Freddy there's an active Mambo developer community, you might want to hunt them down to see if there can be a module to accomplish that. The hitch might be a change in domain name at most, and secondarily a change in URLs.

With Drupal though, you can specify custom URLs right off the shelf with search engine friendly enabled, so depending on the size of the site, that might work if there aren't too many key pages that need to stay firmly planted in the index with the same URLs. Again, there's an active developer community to seek out.

Sometimes core developers of a CMS can do more with its inner workings because they're familiar from the ground up. If there are enough people who need something maybe some arrangements could be made.

[Blind Freddy]

Thanks for the responses.
However, I think that for all intents and puposes the service that allowed the sites of several hundred Tasmanian artists to be easily found is dead.

We had important keywords in Google ranked at number 1 - now the site does not even appear. It has been unavailable for too long.

(At least I don't have to refund anyone any money, as the service I provided for the artists was free).

Three weeks ago I could have done something about this. Now it's too late.
over 3 years and hundreds of hours of work down the tubes.


To Mr. Massa -You've obviously spend hours posting here on this board.

For the life of me I can't understand why you couldn't have taken a few minutes sending an email to your customers and keeping them informed.

By the way - don't make any more charges to my card for this portal if it remains dead - unless you want a visit from Dr. Chargeback.
Eric G.

[lots0]

the service that allowed the sites of several hundred Tasmanian artists to be easily found is dead.Thats a damn shame... Shame on you again Bob...

Is it practicable to import data from a hyperseek backup into a CMS (perhaps Mambo? ) Has anyone done it? Roughly what was involved?

The Hyperseek backup TAR files (after extraction) are just comma delineated files. So all you have to do is get rid of all the extra commas and match the data fields up...

I have made one transfer from hyperseek to a php based directory, it can be done.

Blind Freddy PM me if you want to know about a php directory script that is specific for graphics. Might be just what your looking for.

[DanThies]

Drupal is another good example of an Open Source CMS that would be well suited for creating these kinds of portals. The slogan "community plumbing" gets right to the heart of the matter. These systems take care of the application plumbing, so users can focus on the content.

It shouldn't be very difficult to take comma separated data into a database and repurpose it for any of these scripts. I'd imagine you could get it done very cheaply on Elance etc.

>>Is it practicable to import data from a hyperseek backup into a CMS (perhaps Mambo? )

Freddy there's an active Mambo developer community, you might want to hunt them down to see if there can be a module to accomplish that. The hitch might be a change in domain name at most, and secondarily a change in URLs.

With Drupal though, you can specify custom URLs right off the shelf with search engine friendly enabled, so depending on the size of the site, that might work if there aren't too many key pages that need to stay firmly planted in the index with the same URLs. Again, there's an active developer community to seek out.

Sometimes core developers of a CMS can do more with its inner workings because they're familiar from the ground up. If there are enough people who need something maybe some arrangements could be made.

[Blind Freddy]

Thanks a lot to everyone for the suggestions about alternatives.
We'll follow them up if we decide to set everything up again.

Vale Searchking.

Eric G.

[RikR]

I finally had to give up on SK, although I was very happy there for a long time.

I installed WSN Links, imported all my links from Hyperseek and am happier with the results than I ever was with SK.

[DanThies]

RikR:

If you're using WSNLinks, make sure you put the following in your robots.txt file, so you aren't throwing a ton of empty/duplicate pages at the search engines:
User-Agent: *
Disallow: /email.php
Disallow: /comments.php
Disallow: /report.php
Disallow: /vote.php
Disallow: /link.php
Disallow: /suggest.php

[Blind Freddy]

Had an email from "Phil" at Searchking this morning giving the names of new nameservers.

No apology, no explanation for almost a month of being down.

Wonder if they'll work?
Don't really care - too late for us anyway. What we had is long gone.

Eric G.

[lots0]

if your using mod_rewrite, and IMO you should be, this will work too. ;)


User-Agent: *
Disallow: *.php

[RikR]

I am using

Disallow: *.php


Thanks Dan.

[RikR]

It is a shame. Something seems to have infected the folks at SearchKing. This past year they turned into the most mean spirited, uncaring bunch I have ever dealt with. They stopped seeing us as customers or partners and came to consider us the enemy.

Bob needs to get the water checked in that new building.

[mjr]

It is a shame. Something seems to have infected the folks at SearchKing. This past year they turned into the most mean spirited, uncaring bunch I have ever dealt with. They stopped seeing us as customers or partners and came to consider us the enemy. Yes that unfortunately has been the general conscious. You have NO idea the amount of stress and pressure Bob can add to the enviorment. His daughter and son-in-law, assuming there are even still working there, have a MUCH better report with the customers and have always been sincere in their want to help the customers/clients. I assume (if they are still there) that they are being used to keep the PR Ad Network furnaces going.

Bob needs to get the water checked in that new building. LOL! :)

[DanThies]

if your using mod_rewrite, and IMO you should be, this will work too. ;) ]
Thanks, Lots0, you're right, I was assuming no use of mod_rewrite.

[Blind Freddy]

Dear Mr. Massa.

My forum on searchking has been available (on and off) for a couple of days now.I'd like to get a current backup.
Unfortunately this is not possible, because the backup function does not work

And the error message saying to contact "Portals@searchking.com" is pretty useless, because mail sent to that address bounces back as undeliverable.

As your clients are clearly unable to contact you, and you may not be aware of this problem.

Perhaps you can find time in your very busy day to have this attended to.

Thank You.

[mjr]

I'm afraid your message is going to fall on deaf ears, or in this case blind eyes. He's likely to ignore this thread now.

[Eddie]

Reading this thread has been very sad - depressing even.

I used to be a portal owner with searchking myself. Not one of the freebies, but the portal pro. For the first year or 2 I was delighted with it. I weathered the google storm ( Yes Bob was stupid, but googles reaction was way over the top ), down time , hacks and al the other problems.

In the end, when I had all my sites down for over a week, I decided to call it a day and make the investment of getting my own server. What made it realy bad was that of course the hyperseek back up had not been working properly for a long time, so I could not get any of my data. Despite repeated emails asking for the backups, I never got anything. Even transferring domains to my own server was fraught with difficulty, not because the searchking people were evil, but they were just plain incompetent. In the end I did manage to get all of them except one.

The problems here were caused by the same lack of quality assurance that marks the whole company. Documentation on the programs, and even documentation on where domains had been registered was non existant.

Even today I see the indn support site is up and down like a yoyo, and there are people still showing as moderators who have gone out of business.

[Blind Freddy]

I'm afraid your message is going to fall on deaf ears, or in this case blind eyes. He's likely to ignore this thread now.
I know.
However someone may find this thread when looking for some information (as I did) and it may help to help to see what kind of walk is behind the talk from the point of view of one of his customers.

Eric G.

[massa]

You can send an emaill to either bobking@searchking.com
phil@searchking.com or kevin@searchking.com and I'll make sure someone takes a look BUT, as I've said repeatedly at INDN.org and here, we have not had a response from anyone at hyperseek and we are not able to support hyperseek without some support.

If it is something we can find quickly and fix we will.

We have a link to a contact page on searchking so no one has to use this forum for support issues. That is not what this forum is for and while they have been EXTREMELY gracious, I'm sure there is a limit.

[mjr]

I'm afraid your message is going to fall on deaf ears, or in this case blind eyes. He's likely to ignore this thread now. I stand corrected ;)

...not because the searchking people were evil, but they were just plain incompetent....

The problems here were caused by the same lack of quality assurance that marks the whole company... Exactly!

Not wanting to sound arrogant or stuffy, but once I left SearchKing was doomed, I was the glue and Bob never quite got that. :)

[lots0]

we are not able to support hyperseek without some support.

Bob you burned that bridge, just like so many others...


bob, do you remember Red, the little gal from Montana?
I can't help thinking about her and what you did to her every time I see this thread...

Makes me almost believe that there is some truth to this Karma thing.

[David Wallace]

I'm going to close this one out. Myself and other mods feel this has run its course as there is not much left to discuss that would be beneficial.