Traffic Flow SEO

I have to say this search engine site has one of the most interesting, animated logos I have ever seen. They appear as if they really want to be a player in the search world to the point of even creating and airing TV commercials nationwide. Sounds like a lot of potential, but after a little research I found a lot of articles discussing their deceptive toolbar and the fact that they do not identify their first result first three listings as paid or sponsored. This is more than a little bit shady. I hope they get their act together because I do like their animated logo and "Search 2.0" results.

You can check it out here - RedZee Search Engine

Interesting articles about RedZee (from 2005-2007):

- Search Engine Guide: Seeing Red - Search Engine RedZee� Reviewed

- SEOmoz - Investigating the RedZee Search Engine

- Les Jones - Beware of Redzee.com

Finally one last interesting note - RedZee.com is different from RedZee.net. Check them out as it appears the .net version seems outdated as if it was the earlier search engine. Why would they not update this URL? Seems weird, but I guess so is the engine.

I stumbled on this and just had to share.

Directories are great sources for building inbound links to your site, but you need to be careful as to what directories you submit to especially if they charge a review fee. Below is a quick list of what I look for in a directory before I pay any review fees:

1. A unique logo and/or custom or customized template.
- If a directory owner does not care enough to make their directory stand out from the crowd I feel that is a direct statement on how much they care about their directory (probably not much, so why should I care).

2. A unique set of categories.
- If a directory owner uses a common category download and does not spend the time to make their directory a little unique by creating their own categories, it is another sign that they may not care a lot about their directory.

3. Something that shows activity and life.
- What do I mean by this? Well I am looking for a stats section or a news section or anything that shows me the directory is active and alive. This gives me the feeling that I am going to make a good investment because I want to be involved in a directory that is growing and being actively promoted, so my investment does more than provide just another link to my site, but also provides a little traffic.

4. Active responses to inquiries.
- When a submission review fee runs $50 plus I will usually send a quick email to the directory owner and track how long it takes for him/her to get back to me (if at all). If they are responsive in a timely manner, it gives me a good feeling that I will get a fair and quick review of my submission. If there is a delayed response or no response at all I usually just pass over the directory as it is a sign that the owner may not care much about customer support.

5. General stats.
- Check out Google PR, Yahoo back links, Alexa rankings, age of site, etc. The more stats your can review the better as no one stat can provide a whole picture.

There are additional items that I analyze before submitting sites for reviews including making sure there is some kind of contact information and/or open 'who is' information, but the list above will give you a good start.

I recently visited one of my favorite search engines WiseNut, a great secondary source of relevant search results and was a little saddened to realize that it had recently been shut down. In a day and age where it seems like Google may end up controlling the world it was nice to have another option in the search engine realm.

Back in 2001 when it was launched it used its own database and had critical acclaim as becoming a real player in the search engine world (the same was true for Teoma which was later bought and integrated into Ask.com). It never really lived up to its potential due to lack of features and updates, but did have around 1.5 billion pages indexed which allowed it to return some interesting and relevant search results.

LookSmart bought WiseNut in April of 2002 for a whopping $9 million dollars which, as of the recent WiseNut closing ended up being a bust for them. LookSmart has basically shut down or sold almost every Web-based business unit they owned in the last couple of years from their very established online directory, Zeal to their online parental controls technology, NetNanny to their open source distributed search crawler platform (search engine), Grub and now WiseNut. The only thing left is Furl which may go soon.

It is a sad day to loose another established player (even if it was only a minor player) in the search engine competition.