Traffic Flow SEO

Ask.com just cannot seem to get things right. It's search traffic volume rarely changes, but it's focus seems to change with the wind and it has seen a lot of change as of late with most of it not being considered good. Here is a hit list of fun items over the last year:

- A new look and feel with a new direction as more of a Q&A engine (haven't we done this before?)



- Barry Diller say he sees no value in it - TechCrunch article, Barry Diller: Ask.com Has No Value Inside Of IAC. Somebody get him a muzzle before he further devalues his 1.85 billion dollar investment, please!


- The guy who created the search algorithm leaves - Ask.com’s Founder Of Search Technology Leaves: Apostolos Gerasoulis



- The rise and fall of Ask Deals (a lot of Brady Bunch, but little actual substance)



- The return of 'Jeeves' in the U.K. only (what, is 'Jeeves' not good enough for everyone else?)




.....and now they just sent a message out to all self service credit card advertisers that reads:

Ask Sponsored Listings will be discontinuing the self-service credit card channel on September 30th, 2010.

When the self-serve credit card channel is discontinued, your advertising account will be permanently closed. As a result, your ads will not longer be in distribution and your account will become inaccessible.

Please review the timeline below as this outlines the account deactivation process.

September 1st, 2010 - The Client Services Team will disable the auto refill feature on all accounts. This will prevent any future credit card charges to your account.

Mid September - The Client Services Team will begin deactivating self service credit card advertising accounts and processing refunds for their remaining balances*. When your account is deactivated, you will be given "Reporting-only" access which will allow you to run click reports until September 30th.

September 30th, 2010 - The self-service credit card channel will be discontinued and access to the advertising console will be removed.

*Please note: The refund process can take up to 90 days, but this deadline may be extended.


So, where does this leave us? It leaves us a new interface, lack of confidence from the owner, loss of our technology lead, failed product extensions, a revival of a lost icon (in the U.K.) and now......the end of self service paid ads. Why not just drop another nail in the coffin and also get rid of one of your revenue sources - well it sounds like a good idea, right?

All I can say is that Ask.com once had a chance to be bigger and better than it is today, but I think that time has long passed us by.

Miniwatts Marketing Group just released some fun new data:

* There are 6,845,609,960 humans
* There are 1,966,514,816 Internet users
* There are 517,760,460 Facebook users

Put another way:

* About 7% of the world's humans are on Facebook
* About 26% of Internet users are on Facebook

For all the stats check out - Internet World Stats

My favorite web directory is at it again with a special and not well known promo code until the end of October. This code is for 20% off any of their directory submission services - US and UK web directory listing submissions and blog directory submissions. All the details are below:

Code: SAVE20

Link: Best of the Web Discount Link (use code on checkout)

Good luck and happy submitting!