Archive for March, 2009

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My FAVORITE, and one of the most respected Web Directories on the Internet, Best of the Web (BOTW) is offering a savings code for the month of March!

Just visit this link – Best of the Web Directory Savings Link

And use this code – SAVE25 – and save 25% off your submission costs!

Happy Submitting!!!

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It may sound unbelievable, but Sears (you remember Sears, don’t you – the big retailer) just bought their own search engine! Well, more of a social search engine, but a search engine nonetheless.

Here is the news from Sears:

The acquisition fits in with Sears’ policy to get into online services. As part of the retailer’s restructuring in early 2008, it reoragnized into five relatively independent units: operating businesses, support, brands, e-commerce, and real estate. Sears chairman Edward Lampert is the owner of hedge fund ESL Investments Inc., which controls the company.

Information from Globes Online – Israeli start-up Delver acquired by Sears

Information from TechCrunch – Delver Gets Acquired by Sears

So what next, the K-Mart social network? Stay tuned…..

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I like to give all new search engines a chance. Most of them disappoint me as they provide nothing new, but every once in a while I see something new and exciting and want to share it with the world. Well, Cuil is not one of them. Usually I would not write a negative review on a bad search engine, but this one is so bad that I felt compelled to do so as a warning for others.

Instead of rambling on and on I decided to create a list of all the reasons Cuil sucks and share them with the world (in case you did not already know):

- There relevancy algorithm is terrible
- There results formatting is very confusing (in addition to be terrible)
- There support is nonexistent (you can leave an email or voicemail, but no one really wants to talk with you)
- There follow-up is nonexistent (I tested this by sending multiple emails over a two month period asking questions about the search engine never getting a response)

I am not sure why or how they remain in business, but I do not hold out much hope for them as a search engine if they continue in their current direction. My bet is that they will not be around in the next 12-24 months. Just my 2 cents…..

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While surfing through the Web on my endless quest for the lastest and great in search marketing information, insight and tools, I found this great Web 2.0 user name checker. What is great about it is that it can really show you at a glance if your user name is going to work across a lot of social media web sites, which may or may not make a difference when picking one. Currently the list covers a whopping 104 social media sites and returns results back in less than 30 seconds (as my tests have shown).

Check it out to today at – CheckUserNames.com

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SearchMe (my favorite ‘newer’ search engine) has made an incredible free offer to the first 500 people advertisers who want to try out their new PPC ad system.

Here are the details from their site:

Searchme AdView combines the best of search marketing and branded display ads in a pay-per-click model.

As with other paid search platforms, you provide keywords associated with ads, but instead of showing up as a text ad on the top or right side of the page, your ad is displayed right in the flow of our search results with a picture of your destination URL.

Now your customers can see what they are getting, driving more qualified clients to your site through visual search.

So, my suggestion is to give it a try and see what you think because as the search engine world starts to consolidate (including ad sharing) it is good to have additional ad opportunities. Also, I tend to find that the smaller search engines, even with less traffic tend to convert better at a cheaper cost.

Click here for more information or to sign-up now – Free SearchMe AdView Beta Campaign

Company Information – SearchMe CrunchBase Information

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