goto.com - your experiences and views needed...

I'm assuming it crawls the web also...

Our work site comes up and we didn't pay for listings..

If not how do you add a free listing to it ?

I've never used it, but I've heard that it's really good. That is, if you're in the top 20, 'cause most people only look that far.

Sites that didn't pay to get into the directory only appear after the sites that did pay. I don't know if it crawls or what though...

We use it all the time, and are quite pleased. It drives a decent amount of traffic to our site.

As for running out of money.. you can specify a certain amount of money to spend. It will warn you when you are close to running out.

Adam

Although I haven't used it on The JavaScript Place I have used it on another site and although it doesnt bring in that much traffic it is very good. The reason it doesnt bring in much traffic is because the area we are targetting is not very large at all and also only UK residents can apply whcih minimises the target audience quite alot.

The good thing about it though is that all the sites that steal from search engines (dogpile, askjeeves etc) all steal from goto so you don't get hits just from goto.com but from others.

All in all, it is a great service and the search term finder is immensley useful, you must use this before you buy keywords!

[added]Also, they wont take your money and say you have had more clikthroughs then you have. they also somehow try to stop competitors from constantly clicking on your link to make tyou pay more.[/added]

I have used goto for my other sites and will be adding my site below very soon. I have had very good results. I paid about $.10 per keyword. I also used other pay per click search engines averaging $.05 per click. Don't worry about getting loads of hits. You won't unless you bid more than around $.30 per keyword on popular keywords. I recommend bidding low on lots of keywords!

If you want some info and articles on Goto and other pay per click search engines check out the site in my sig I have reviewed 30 pay per click search engines along with a few articles I have written.

Emailed some people using it and they really liked it so, I thought about it for around the christmas season however, as a surfer I think it stinks because you don't always get the results you search for - you see who pays the most. Sometimes its as though they don't care who is at the top as long as they are paying more.

The philosophy is that they believe that if a site is any good, than it can afford to pay for a good search engine ranking. This isn't always true, though. Also, it shows the searchers how valued their visit is from the site, which has it's ups and downs (I once saw a bid for $1.49).

It's a good thing: CPC is always good for the advertiser, as it shows more that the visitor is interested in their site. GoTo.com takes CPC to the next level, as your ad doesn't just show up in front of a random visitor (with exception of ad targeting), but the visitor is actually searching for info that your site deals with.

$20 = 400 Click-Thrus @ $.05 each
$20 = 2000 Click-Thrus @ $.01 each (this atleast bumps you over the no-pay sites).

I would personally pay $.2 as it is just a little more than what most would probably pay in my sites categories and it allows for 100 clicks for $20.

On that idea, search the keywords you use, see what others that are listed bid, decided what rank you want for that keyword, then bid one or two cents right above the ranked site that you want to be.

Richard

i use to use it. it was good for a decent amount of traffic considering i paid a max of 2 cents for a click. however, i stopped using it because my traffic picked up on its own.

good luck

I'm using it, and it produces pretty good result!
Since in order to survive, goto.com had been affiliated with other sites (like dogpile, and other search sites, i don't remember), and your site appears to really related searches.
And the bidding price was not so bad now.
More goto-alike SE are coming, and the next one I started to use is RocketLinks, I think I will try Sprink from about.com

All have minimum balance is 25$, not too bad for starting.

This site points to a lot of information on pay per click search engines, including a few advice articles on how to get the best out of them:

http://www.payperclicksearchengines.com

I've used GoTo, FindWhat, Sprinks, Kanoodle and RocketLinks.

The first three did well, but the last two just didn't have the traffic. I'm going to use up my $25 at Kanoodle in about 2045.

I've heard people claim that a clickthrough from GoTo is, despite expectations, generally of a lower quality than from a normal search engine. You will find competitors simply clicking on your site, and I've heard that some people get a kick out of popping down to GoTo once a day and clicking on all the links that cost the advertiser a lot of money per click.

Even so, it's hard to beat 1 cent per visitor, if you can find the right keywords.

Some tips from my GoTo experience:

* Don't get into a bidding war for top place. Getting in the top 5 for a lot less $/click often proves more cost effective than being No.1.

* Getting in the top 10 is beneficial, because these results get picked up by some of the meta search engines.

* Be inventive with the keywords you bid on. A lot of advertisers just stop at the basic single-term words. If you use GoTo's search popularity tool, you can find relevant word combinations where you can still get high rankings for a few cents per click.

* Bid on spelling mistakes and typos - I once got a lot of traffic from people searching for "Physcians Desk Reference"

* Defend your patch. If you're getting outbid and pushed down the rankings by sites which you think are not relevant to the keyword in question, tell GoTo. They do respond. I had a Microsoft bid removed once. Talk about an ego trip

* Remember that you only pay per click, not per impression. So you can use the page title and description you give GoTo to pre-select visitors. Some people even use it just to build awareness, much like the pay-per-click banners that are not designed to be clicked on.

Mark

ibizInterviews, ibizNewsletters & ibizTips
http://www.ibizhome.com/1712.htm

I wrote an article on not worrying about being number one. According to my testing and observation. Aiming for number 3 or 4 produces almost the same results as number one, but at a lower price.

Most people scan the first 3 or 4 listing anyways to see what is the most relevant. So as long as your site is interesting and you describe it good you will receive good traffic.

Just a note: It seems they have removed that search suggestion tool which was usefull when choosing keywords. Anyone know why?

I thought I was going mad !!!

I finally found a link for it under the faq, but it just loads up a blank pop up window. Was totally frustrated with that !

It was a very cool feature. Hope it returns, I might mail them about it..

http://inventory.go2.com/inventory/Search_Suggestion.jhtml

strange about the pop up window one though...

I have used the keyword suggestio tool at http://www.jimtools.com and it is great. You type in a promary keyword then a couple secondary keywords and it tells you some other keywords you probaly have not thought about.

I just started using RocketLinks, do you guy think it's effective? Since I got no click-thru for about a week! (although ranking + keywords are many!)

I spoke to GoTo the link should be back up this monday, or at the latest Thursday. Let's hope that is the case.

Alt you could check out wordtracker.com

JP

We are a heavy user of GoTo. It is great if you can get a decent position in the bid placement. They are good about keeping you informed if you are running out of money and offer helps on how to find many keywords and phrases that can increase your results, often at a lover average cost per lead.