cyberphrases -- is this legit?

[kidmercury]

hi,

i just got a call from a sales rep over at cyberphrases.com. they offer a deal that is as follows:

1. they have this IE browser add-on that when it is downloaded it displays the home pages of certain sites in iframes for search queries on all the major search engines.

2. they then sell you the right to have your site in an iframe at the top of each search query for your relevant term.

aside from the fact that this could be the most annoying thing in the history of search from the perspective of the user, does anyone know how effective this would be? meaning is there a way to determine if they can get this installed on as many IE browsers as possible, and if this would work on future IE updates? it does not work on mozilla, although the sales rep i talked to claimed it works on netscape and opera.

any thoughts?

[bhartzer]

..and how many people have it downloaded and installed?
...and how many people have downloaded it on purpose and installed it?

It sounds like spyware/scumware to me. No Thanks.

[kidmercury]

..and how many people have it downloaded and installed?
...and how many people have downloaded it on purpose and installed it?

It sounds like spyware/scumware to me. No Thanks.

yes that's what it sounds like to me as well. i'm wondering how effective it would be though -- can something like this actually work to generate traffic to the user?

[bhartzer]

Generally, no.

Most traffic nowadays comes from Google, Yahoo! and MSN.

A few years back the first "plugin" type of system was developed called "Real Names". They failed miserably and burned through a lot of money. It never caught on.

[Festus]

A person contacted my partner and he asked them to send information for 2 keywords and they faxed a contract for him to sign. It is interesting how information turned into a contract. :confused:

I saw the fax come in via email and so I called and talked to the person responsible for sending the contract. Of course I acted as if I were interested.

The person claimed I would be investing in real estate if I bought keywords. They said that MSN or Yahoo were about to buy them because they "wanted them gone" but then said that it would be carried on and cyberphrases would be administrating it for them. The person claimed that as soon as they were bought, that the keywords costs would triple. He went as far as to say if they were bought by MSN or Yahoo, he gauranteed my service would still be active and would not be discountinued.

The person said that the software that was installed to activate the result in the windows would not be detected by any spyware/adware programs and "gauranteed" it would never be detected as such.

Then the person mentioned 2 other companies and said he had contracts they were about to sign for my keywords, but he "was not trying to pressure me."

Then I asked if I could buy Tradmark names if I had permission of the owners and he put a "manager" on the phone. I asked if I could buy Trademark name, and was about to say "if I had permission" and he interuppted me and said that he would sell me a trademark name as long as it wasn't something obvious like Sony, Coke, Disney or something like that. So I said it would not be one of those and he said that he would just slip the contract in his pile and let it go though. On the contract they sent, it says that "I represent that none of the keywords or and/or phrases in my order infringes trademark, service mark, copyright of any third party and I agree that Cyberphrases will not be held responsible for any such infringement."

Of course most everything they told me on the phone was not mentioned in the contract at all.

I did a little research and found that they also operate or have operated as:

searchclimbers.com
windowpositions.com
windowpositions.us
rocketposition.com
winspeedtech.com

They probably operate or have operated in many other names.

Some of the domain names are registered as domains by poxie, but some show FL address. All of their websites have a common 800 number to cancel your service.

The contract they sent has a completely different address than the one they show on their "User Agreement" on their website. All of their websites listed above show a different address in the "User Agreement" section.

So do you think it is a scam? ;)

[shorebreak]

A friend down in LA heard about this and asked me about it today; this is hiliarious, except for the fact that real people are probably being bilked out of $$ left and right.

Bhartzer, as an aside, I worked at RealNames back in 99-00, I can tell you that RealNames' traffic was absolutely legit. Realnames had two business:

1)Trying to replace the URL with natural language in the same way URLs replaced IP addresses. It was a good idea and still is a good idea, but last time around AOL, unlike MSFT, wasn't willing to be a party to it because of their desire to keep AOL users *inside* AOL. I fault AOL's lack of vision, as monetarily it would have made all the sense in the world for them to forgo AOL Keywords for Internet Keywords. One need only look at AOL's lackluster subscriber growth to know that walling off their users from the internet was a strategic mistake.

2)Paid search. No need to wonder about that business model, as GOOG & YHOO have proved its merits. It's worth noting that RN was the company that showed Google what PPC revenues could look like, prior to which Google had no idea how they were going to make money off their cool search engine, no idea at all other than their search appliance. I know this to be true because I witnessed the selling process RN had to take Google through to warm them to the idea. RealNames also had its paid listings distributed on MSN, AltaVista, Go (Disney), Excite and 5-10 other search engines way before GoTo got big.

90% of the traffic RealNames delivered to its clients came from #2 above, and companies like eBay, About.com, HP and others got huge amounts of traffic for paltry prices. The problem was that the CEO was focused on the direct navigation piece and was almost *unwilling* to let us sell the value of the search distribution, which he deemed to be a temporary revenue stream until Internet Keywords in the address bar took off. It never did except for a small, small percentage of the market, and then when it became clear to MSFT that AOL wouldn't get on board, they killed the deal, leaving RealNames with only (hah) the search distribution.

I will offer, however, that there were a few dozen deals (out of over 50,000) that shouldn't have been done, namely selling generic terms in the address bar, but they never amounted to much revenue anyways.

-Shorebreak

[shorebreak]

There's a great site called dogdoo.com and from which you can send an 'El Grande'; I think these guys deserve it. Anyone want to chip in?

[Festus]

Yeah they deserve a "El Grande" alright, but it would be funnier for someone to string them along a lot longer than I did. Promise them a $100,000 worth of keywords and make them jump through hoops. Document the whole story with whatever correspondece and pictures you can get to put up on a website.

You could require them to send pictures of themself standing outside of their headquarters before sending them a check so you know they are "legitimate" and not just phoning you from their apartment. Make them hold up a sign with their names and some "codeword" you give them to know it is a real, recent picture of them.

[Festus]

oh wow, I just noticed this thread. I guess this guys are going down. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of guys.

http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=6445

[adgooroobizdev]

Then I asked if I could buy Tradmark names if I had permission of the owners and he put a "manager" on the phone. I asked if I could buy Trademark name, and was about to say "if I had permission" and he interuppted me and said that he would sell me a trademark name as long as it wasn't something obvious like Sony, Coke, Disney or something like that. So I said it would not be one of those and he said that he would just slip the contract in his pile and let it go though. On the contract they sent, it says that "I represent that none of the keywords or and/or phrases in my order infringes trademark, service mark, copyright of any third party and I agree that Cyberphrases will not be held responsible for any such infringement."


This is a perfect example of why monitoring trademark infringement is so important to protecting a company's brand. "I'll just slip it in the pile and let it go through?" The contract says the right things...this just makes one wonder whether the contract and the actions coincide. I'm not making any assumptions, just posing the question or concern.

I started another thread about trademark infringement here:
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=8741

I was hoping to get exactly this kind of feedback in that forum. Thanks for sharing that experience.

[wabwab]

The sales pitch wasn't as hard core as most scams. It does however scare me a little that they don’t take credit cards, but they do take PayPal, checks and wire transfers. It also struck me as odd that the contract was dated four-and-a-half months prior to it being faxed to me, but that could simply be a typo.

[g7submit]

I checked this company's site out and tested their demo; everything felt so funny, I guess it would just mislead simpletons (or should I say Internet newbies).

The whole iFrame technology they are using rests ONLY within their website! It looks so ridiculous that it amazes me they can succeed with this kind of marketing. I still wonder how people can fall for this type of gimmick marketing. If it isn't any form of trickery, why is the URL still showing theirs and not the chosen (I picked Google) SE?

The whole thing looks like the work of a college kid who just discovered iFrames and the Internet.

Correct me if I'm wrong, the whole thing looks kindergarten to me :o .

[jramblas]

Nevermind the legitimacy of the search engine tactics Cyberphrases uses -- Cyberphrases as a company is not legitimate.

Simply put, Cyberphrases is CRIMINALLY FRAUDULENT. I personally know people who have "worked" with them, a.k.a. sent them money -- the only thing they have gotten in return is headaches.

Cyberphrases took their money, never gave them anything in return - not even an account -- didn't refund their money and didn't return their phone calls. They will steal your money and you will get the shaft. My recommendation is to STAY AWAY FROM CYBERPHRASES!!!

P.S. On their site, they have a "Clients and Partners" section -- I called these so-called CyberPhrases clients and none of them had even heard of CyberPhrases and none of them do business with CyberPhrases. Go ahead and see for yourself -- contact their "Clients and Partners" and they will tell you that they have no affiliation with Cyberphrases. Cyberphrases will rob you blind.

[pixel1]

From what I have read on cyberphrase you should just stay away, they seem to be doing unethical practices. I personally have not had exposer to them but I have seen to many negatives. :)

[broomd]

I have a client that continues to pay these searchclimbers.com people while our organic marketing continues to be the legitimate source for his traffic.... he has paid searchclimbers or similar companies for more than a couple of years. I have tried to show him this has no worth to no avail.

He has also signed up for places like Redzee, kanoodle, and other small time search engines that, in my opinion, are hard to justify in your marketing budget.

For example, I check his stats this week and redzee.com is showing a completely ridiculous amount of "site visitors." More than 985 referrals in the past 7 days alone. They claim to represent less than 1/2 of 1% of Internet traffic and then drain 985 visitors for terms that, even if you were ranked top 10 across the board, would not achieve 985 visitors to your site in one week.

At least it is not my money, but this poor gentleman is wasting so much money and I can't seem to get him to stop believing these sales callers.

Has anyone else out there run into clients like this? IF so, outside of slapping them around, how do you get them to see that what you are saying is correct? I am at my whits end with trying to get this person to understand that seeing 985 visitors does not mean that you really got 985 valuable visitors to your site.

:cool: