what do you think about companies like godotless?

what do you think about companies like godotless dot com?

This company has 16 million users according to them and it is a search engine hijack to some extent where above the results they will have a window.

How do the webmasters and business owners here fell about this kind of advertising?

Has anyone ever done this kind of advertising? If so, did it work well?

open for discussion - good or bad lets throw this around a little to help educate each other on this kind of stuff. Most of these kinds of companies use spyware to install their hijacks or are spyware themselves.

 

I hate these spyware companies. Each one of them claim to have "10 million" people with the software installed. They don't tell you the majority are in china or someplace.

A new one of these crops up each week...claiming to get you front position on some random phrase. I assume they aren't all selling the same script that hits the same DB server (if they did, it might be more interesting).

Microsoft invented this concept, remember? They couldn't make it work for advertisers, what makes anyone think a smaller company can. People use the search box for searching, not the address bar (well, not enough to make it worthwhile).

I knew someone who bought a service similar to this a few years ago (he was #1 for a single word keyword). He paid $800 for a year and got next to no traffic from it. Says it all right?

I think about it like this...
If they offer me a keyword "widgets" for 800/year, lets say. If I bid top bid on google for the word, I could pay $800 in an hour. Doesn't that say a lot about how much traffic -THEY- expect to generate for you?

 

In April of 2004 I chanced upon godotless while I was researching a better way to market my custom t-shirts. I was pretty skeptical, but I must say that I'm glad I went through with it in the long run. Honestly the only reason I did go through with it is because they added a performace clause to my contract which stated that I'd get 1,500 unique visitors to my website every month. I figured that since it's in a contract, and I can get my investment back if it goes awry, what the hell?

I ended up getting a lot more visits to my website, and my sales did go up. It did take me a few months though to see any difference as far as people buying my shirts, but I guess that's just the way it is. In the long run it helped me pay off my credit card bills, I made the money back that I invested, and I went back to school. All in all - not bad...

 

Now to see if standing desert will come back or if he is just a company rep trying to look good.....

 

interesting:

As a programmer with the company in question I would like to dispute a few points:

I hate these spyware companies. Each one of them claim to have "10 million" people with the software installed. They don't tell you the majority are in china or someplace.

Actually the term spyware only applies in cases of software that secretly collects information about the user. Technically, the term adware would probably be more appropriate. To date, there are no users in China. They actually use a different keyword company, 3721.com which was recently purchased by Yahoo! for $120 million dollars. Apparently, Yahoo thinks there is a future here. BTW the software is mislabeled as a virus, 90% of users have it in China, and instead of seeing the owned sponsorship as a investment in intellectual property much like a domain name, They are getting the same criticism from the west. Netpia.com who handles the Korean market, claims a connection to the election of the current president of South Korea, and his registering his name as a keyword. So, in other markets, it seems to work. Is it impossibble to work in America? Not to mention the google toolbar has an intersting feature built in these days, browse-by-name actually it's what you would call an address bar hijacker, that takes keywords, and mistyped domain names, and takes the user to a site they choose based on their ranking system. Because it's google, nobody says anything bad. interesting. If google does it with their toolbar it's ok, and if yahoo buys up the china plugin, that's okay, but for another comapny to jump in, seo geeks go nuts. Finally, the firm in question does not claim "10 million users" as indicated on the original post.

A new one of these crops up each week...claiming to get you front position on some random phrase. I assume they aren't all selling the same script that hits the same DB server (if they did, it might be more interesting).

Random phrases would likely produce poor results. Clients decide which keywords they would like to sponsor, by using data from tools provided by Google and Yahoo who are okay with you right?

Microsoft invented this concept, remember? They couldn't make it work for advertisers, what makes anyone think a smaller company can. People use the search box for searching, not the address bar (well, not enough to make it worthwhile).
Wrong again. Microsoft did not invent this technology, Real Names did. And they didn't fail because they did not provide results, they were cut off by Microsoft, so they could capture all the traffic through the address bar themselves, into their failing search engine: MSN. Which is why within a week of shutting down Real Names, they plugged MSN into the addess bar to capture those searches.

I knew someone who bought a service similar to this a few years ago (he was #1 for a single word keyword). He paid $800 for a year and got next to no traffic from it. Says it all right?
Actually it says very little, as more than 80% of the traffic generated for our clients stems from the search engine, not the address bar. Something the company you are talking to was not doing. How do I know that, becuase that technology did not exist a few years ago. Check with the patent office on that one. The real bottom line is the failings of another company who did not do what we do, a few years ago, has little bearing on our ability to achieve ROI for our clients.

I think about it like this...
If they offer me a keyword "widgets" for 800/year, lets say. If I bid top bid on google for the word, I could pay $800 in an hour. Doesn't that say a lot about how much traffic -THEY- expect to generate for you?
No, actually you lost me on this one.

I'm a guy who works 18 hour days, and 7 day work weeks trying to find new ways to improve our technology, to attract more users, increase traffic and ROI for our clients. Did it ever occur to you that some of us actually went into this market following the success of other companies, in different regional markets? I've tuned down job opportunities for a lot of big firms including Microsoft and Intel, and some smaller research firms to do what I do. I don't appreciate some seo geek with time enough to post over 700 messages to this board but not 5 minutes to do their homework on who we are, what we do, and why their is every possibility that it could work?Let me ask you a question, and be honest. If we could place one company on top of the search engine results, and every computer in the country, had the ability o see that, would it work? yes or no?

If you answered no you should cancel google and overture sponsorships as they do the same. Acutally they too only represnt portions of the market, not everybody USES google and yahoo.

If you answered yes than you acknowledge what we do can work, but it's dependent on our users base. If you actually are familiar with how we get the software out, a method no other company in our market anywhere in the world has ever done with a signed active X control, you might take a step back and realize that it's one of many strategies nobody has ever tried and with more "real" users and capturing the search engine as well as the address bar, there is actually the possibility that this not only works, but will work better ever day it's out there.

Since you are so busy posting 700 messages,, you were probably too busy to do any real research so let me help you:

Yahoo 3721 deal:
http://news.com.com/Yahoo+buys+Chinese+software+firm/2100-1038_3-5110601.html

Google keywords:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1623766,00.asp

chinese platform:
http://www.3721.com

Korean platform:
http://www.netpia.com

This should be enough to lead you in the right direction. God knows I have more, we have investors to answer to, they kinda demanded some research before pulling out the check books. But then you probably have never worked for a real Internet startup, and have no idea what it really takes.

I will not go into information about our company, as I would prefer not to cover any of our new projects as you have made clear that you "hate" our company, depite your lack of knowledge. Take your hatred somewhere else. Somebody asked a question. You never really answered it. That somebody would even use the word "hate" and know so little about the company or individuals who work hard here to make this better than what it already is, is really sad. Oh well, I have work to do, I've only been here 12 hours so far, and I have a lot of clients that have taken a chance with us, and I need to stop wasting time on these stupid gossip boards and get back to what I can do for them.

 

Boy all of that for what??

You blew me out of the water on your last 2 paragraphs.

I went back to see who said hate, or who you were answering. We pass around info on this forum and usually don't pull apart a company without good reason. Lorien1973 was talking about companies "like" yours, but I didn't take it that he meant yours directly.

I asked a serious question for people here to help with and when the company rep comes and sinks his own ship, that also helps me make decisions.

 

One other question: Do you think that the search engines are happy with the override of their website?

I know if I owned google I would be talking with lawyers on this, since your software obviously targets their search results that are shown on peoples computers. I know this area is all new to the courts, but I would feel like you are stealing from me if I was one of the search engines.

 

well, when the thread is #1 for "godotless" in google, he has to come in and post something so they can be found

 

Yeah it's funny how that works. It will not last long, and will not be the first time. At least it's not a competitor starting the thread which is 905 of the bad press we've had to field.

The bottom line is that this service works, and it's effectiveness is determined by the number of users in a particular market and the keywords registered. If I see that it works, if I talk to those clients that are happy with the service, then can you see why it's upsetting when somebody comes and starts messing with my company name? How is that a good thing? Here is a fact, people will want to cancel service with us simply becuase they read your message.

Let me help you. Fuck GoDotless. They are a fucking scam. They claim to have millions of users but they are all in china. They are not really in orange county california, they are a call center in indonesia. the plugin stole my credit card information, and my even kitty. My Kitty! I loved my kitty too.

 

Now I know I wouldn't buy your service. You have shown some very childish behavior. BTW, from experience it is easier to trust people from other countries than those from southern ca. who seem to not care how they get your money.

 

What a wonderful commercial for godotless. I have to wonder if debunked's question at the beginning of this thread has been fully answered or not?

 

No direct answer, but would I use the service now??? He has done more harm than 10 competitors could have ever done.

If he stopped now and apologized he would probably be able to recover some dignity in this forum, but he posted another useless thread and I am assuming he is clueless to what the ramifications will be.

 

Shawn, it appears that clientwindows sells or programmed godotless.

Now this thread will probably be top for godotless for quite awhile, especially since he kept it going when he should drop it or come back and apologize.

 

Searching Google.com for 'godotless', a company I advertised with, and replying to a thread about the company turns me into <sarcasm>a company rep</sarcasm>?

I don't know too much about them, I just thought I'd put in my two cents on my experience with them.

 

I hope you can give more input, maybe what your ROI was with them, how they treated you (since Ray has given me a very, very bad impression so far) or anything else would be helpful.

standingdesert, it was the one time post thing that happens a lot and people will assume you are a rep when that happens, thats all.

If the forum owner (Shawn in this case) looked at the IP when signing up would they match? Many times this has happened. The person signs up twice to make himself look better usually when they are caught redhanded ripping off people.

 

I would have never, ever, ever ever ever ever guessed that.

He should quit while he is ahead. Shawn, you were nice enough to delete the garbage posts that made him look childish and if standingdesert never wrote again, I would have not known that he was the same (or atleast the same IP)