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Pay Engines: Kanoodle.comHome > Promote > Advertising > Search Engines
Application Kanoodle has a nice form for adding search terms. As you can see in the example below the form is simple and intuitive. 
The add form contains three boxes identical to the one above. Once the form is sent, the bids are automatically active. For webmasters who wish to add multiple terms, there is an Excel form available for download. All one has to do is fill out the form and mail it to Kanoodle Customer Service. Rankings can be checked and managed from the main Account Information page. On that page there are two tables, one that contains Account Information such as the current Account balance and another that contains a table with all registered search terms. With the Search Terms table, one can easily compare their rank with others and raise or remove it if necessary. One can also tell how many clickthroughs the term has received, which is very nice. The Application is well designed, easy to use but is not without problems. When I signed up for service, the form timed out several times. I had to hit the back button on my browser and resubmit the form often. There were also problems when I inputted my credit card. My card was charged, but I was unable to begin managing my account because the application thought there was no money in my balance. This caused quite a headache and a delay in getting registered. Customer Service Kanoodle's customer service is quite poor. I had to correspond with customer service plenty on the aforementioned problem. After I had problems with the form, I immediately sent a piece of mail to Customer Service with the captured page of my bids attached. I received a prompt response. They said the problems I had were due to there being no money in my account. They kindly asked me to login to my account and add funds through the secure server. I responded saying that my credit card had already been charged, and I even pasted the HTML from my Online Banking page documenting the charge. In response I was informed that they could straighten the credit situation out only if I sent them my credit card number in e-mail. I make it a habit to only give out credit information on secure forms or on the phone. I had them call me the next day, which they did. I kindly gave them my credit card number and the representative assured me that she would personally take care of everything and make sure my bids were active the following day. Up to that point Kanoodle had been kind and responsive, but didn't go much out of their way to assist me. I did not hear anything for 3 days. Then I sent another piece of mail asking for an update. I also mentioned that I needed the bids in place for an article I was writing for W3Nation. It was only then that I got results. My bids were active the next day and there were no extra charges on my card. I found an apologetic three paragraph e-mail. I lost almost 2 weeks worth of bids due to the problems. If there are any future problems, I will likely cancel the account rather than contact customer service again. Tools Kanoodle does not have any bidding tools available. Reports Kanoodle does not have any reports available other than the Account Balance and Search Terms table mentioned above. Competition Since Kanoodle is a new engine the competition is slim. The term 'web design' had almost 20,000 searches on Goto last month and the bidding is as high as $2.50. On Kanoodle, there are only 13 sites that bid at all, the highest being $.09 (held by us). I'm sure these numbers will pick up as Kanoodle grows. But it is a good idea to get in early. Remember, the site that has been a member longest is ranked first when there are equal bids. This can be a great advantage over one's competition. Traffic Kanoodle's traffic isn't bad. In fact, it was better than I expected. I didn't get to test it as long as I would have liked because of the credit card problems, but for the few days that it has been active, it has sent a few people our way. At the time of this writing, we have received 12 total referrals in a few days. 6 of those were on the term 'web design'. 1 of those we received from the Inktomi results rather than any of our bids. It's reasonable to expect 3 or 4 referrals a day, which really isn't bad for a search engine. I expect the traffic to pick up because of Kanoodle's aggressive ad campaign. Is it worth it? Even will all the troubles I had, I would say yes. I would rather spend $25 and have it stretch awhile than have those 3 or 4 visitors go elsewhere New
Pay Engines: Are They Worth It? |
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