New business idea for you!

[jess1]

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I am completely fed up with trying to get listed in Google, MSN, Dmoz and the rest. I dont want to spend a lot of money and the PPC threshold is too high.

I was thinking about how difficult it is for the not so savy affiliate to really understand the complex proceedures in SEO and getting ranked in the popular directories too.

There are so many talented people in this forum, why dont some of you get together and create a UK specific search engine that competes with google. You could still do PPC but bring it down to 1p or 2p per click.

I have found that google is slipping in terms of the searches and is becoming easy to spam. I have no idea where msn.co.uk is heading.

Have a think, if we all work on it we could produce some thing quite big, me thinks.

[drivetowin]

Don't wish to be a party pooper but I suspect the costs involved in doing this would soon make it uneconomic - any new search engine would have to compete in an already crowded market and would take a long time - and a lot of manual effort to compile - let alone promote.

Whether we like it or not, google, msn, inktomi, dmoz, yahoo etc are long established and now effectively household names - to take them on would require a budget well into seven figures, and I doubt that even the best of us on the forum have access to that sort of funding.

[jess1]

kbudden: You party pooper,lol

Yes I understand what you are saying and agree in part, but we have the tools and the skills right here in this forum. More importantly we have all the contacts. Knowledge is power. How did these big guys get where they are? Yes they got finance to bring on board the above, software developers, markeing & PR. PR is in most cases free.

Maybe I am wrong, but if I find an obsticle in front of me, proventing me from moving forwards, retreat is the last option. I look for alternatives and in some cases if there are none, I will look for a way to create one. This is such a situation. I know there are lots of smaller search engines out there and the reason why they never grew is because they didn't have the contacts, the marketing and in some cases the time.

I don't believe that money is always an issue, in most cases its about contacts.

[drivetowin]

Don't get me wrong, I think its a great idea - I agree with you that collectively we probably do have the skills and the expertise and the contacts - it's just a question of how practical it is to bring it everyone together - but hey - nothing ventured nothing gained so let's see if enough people are interested.

The main obstacles in any major project unfortunately are money and time - I spent a lot of last year working on a project to provide children with safe Internet access - lots of well intentioned people, some great technical ideas, but at the end of the day we could not find anyone to put up the initial investment (150K) involved - a major national childrens charity would not even invest 10K - yet they happily spend three times that on a company car for one of their executives - sorry I'm getting on to my soapbox...

[Lea]

not sure if it really works - but I think it does

update one page that is in google a lot - as it gets spidered - i think - it knows that your page is updated - and spiders it more - then put yourself a little links directoy off that page - and hey presto your sites are all in.

Mine usually get into google in less than 4 weeks now - I think it is because of what I do - but am not sure

LOL - is that funny or what?

Lea

[drivetowin]

Lea

I agree with you it seems to work, though we have had one site which Google has stubbornly refused to pick up more than one page from for about three months - then yesterday it suddenly picked up another 20 - I'm now busily updating those 20 in the hope it will pick up the other 100 or so in the site.

[jess1]

Lea: Lol, yes Ill write a page about the wonders of google ans se what happens, as kbubben says, nothing ventured nothing gained

Kbudden: And there's the obsticle

we could not find anyone to put up the initial investment (150K

Mention investment and every one runs in the other direction.
Investers will find you! There are scouts out there, it's their job.

I could write an essay about Software to make surfing safe for kids. It is still a good idea, don't give up the dream. If you want to continue with it, drop me a line with your email address and I can give you some time saving tips where resources and where time will be minimal. But I diverse....

Part of the problem is indeed asking people to give up some time to work on the project. Depending on how many want to get involved, the time can be divided so that each person does a little bit. Once the software has been written ( and it can be written in such away that it requires minimal input, it is a question of marketing and awareness. This is where we all use out contacts and skills.

I am not saying that I want to do this, but I certainly would like to help if some one else wanted to do this. Every one in this forum has one common goal, to make money. This is just another possible avenue of revenue. Just another idea, I have loads

Shhhhhh don't tell anyone, but last year I even thought about putting a CD together for pets left at home during the day whilst their owners were at work.

[ianm]

Originally posted by jess1
Shhhhhh don't tell anyone, but last year I even thought about putting a CD together for pets left at home during the day whilst their owners were at work.

Jess, don't they have problems using the remote with their paws?

[drivetowin]

paws - paws who needs paws, you've obviously never played a playstation game against my goldfish

[jess1]

Flaws with paws!

Yes but the idea was it would be MP3 file, 12 hours of comands for dogs, whale music for fish,tropical rain forest noises for birds and reptiles, plinky plonky noises for cats and squeaks for hamsters and other rodents. I think it would take off, for real... how many guilty pet ownsers are out there. How many people buy gifts for their animals at xmas? How much do we spend on pet insurance and vet bills? roflmao (with paws in the air)

[Mogga]

There is always room for a new google - whoops I mean search engine.

And my cat types better than me somedays.

[lowndsy]

But there are already plenty of uk search engines with pretty much that business model. The only difference I can see is that we could promote it heavily between us just because of the huge volume of sites that are run by forum members.
Maybe another idea could be to get a preferential ppc rate for forum members from an existing search engine on the condition that we increease its exposure? That way we could help create a new Google and leave managing it to the experts.
Any search engines lurk these boards who might be interested?

[Ecco]

a UK specific search engine that competes with google.

I'll get my cat working on the algorhythms right away

[traffic4biz]

There are a lot of problems with setting this up - we've been putting it together for the twelve months!

To respond to the original thread may I say that there is no way that the service can be sold initially to the general public at 1 or 2 p per click.

Business needs initially require in the region of 10p minimum (to cover the marketing costs).

However when we launch the search engine we could offer, all the Affiliates here, a listing at 2p per click if you can help us to promote the site.

Depending on the level of support we get from yourselves we could even agree to a profit share amongst all the supporting Affiliates or reduce the ppc to nil.

If any Affiliates want to take it further let me know and hopefully we can grow together.

[jess1]

Mogga: I kinda relate to that

Lowdsey:"Maybe another idea could be to get a preferential ppc rate for forum members from an existing search engine on the condition that we increease its exposure? That way we could help create a new Google and leave managing it to the experts"

Good idea, Im up for that!

Traffic4biz:"However when we launch the search engine we could offer, all the Affiliates here, a listing at 2p per click if you can help us to promote the site."

Im up for that too.

Let's see if there is any interest in here?
Wanna do a poll?