Ideas to promote a new different search engine that likes to give

wabbadabba · 02-04-07

Hello guys,

Firstly I wanted to say hello to all of you here. I have just registered with these forums, but I have been reading them for a while.

Just wanted to ask you clever guys here for an advice. I hope you will be nice and welcome me with help, I promise to be good here and help the other members..

We have launched a new search engine - Wabbadabba - about a month ago. (www.wabbadabba.com) We are seeing a growth in the number of registered users and also just a visiting users.

So why would you be using wabbadabba instead of Google/Yahoo/MSN ? Well with wabbadabba you have a chance of winning a prize, everytime you search. You don't have to click anywhere and registration is optional.

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Now, this post isn't about promoting the search engine here. Our users are promoting the site for ourselves but we want to grow more and have a press coverage. Possibly get to BBC technology section, Guardian, print magazines about technology...

I think the idea is new in the UK and the concept of getting something for nothing can be appealing to the mass market.

So the question is.. How to get to the press? Which PR agency would you recommend that could achieve that?

Looking forward for your replies.

janusz

Brendon · 02-04-07

What's the core engine? Result quality is / will be key in attracting users

wabbadabba · 02-04-07

Brendon,

Thanks for your reply. Our results are powered by Yahoo. I know their results aren't the best but their brand is strong.

Top banana · 02-04-07

You are either mad or very brave. Google are so dominate that you need millions if not billions to get this off the ground.

Brendon · 02-04-07

>> I know their results aren't the best

They're not bad. How much (if any) algorithmic control do you have?

I'd also suggest you read Rich Skrentas recent thoughts on this topic - http://www.skrenta.com/2007/03/how_t...le_part_1.html - you may find them timely.

>> Google are so dominate that you need millions if not billions to get this off the ground.

Actually, I agree with Skrenta that that is exactly wrong. Googles original success was based on being the cheap'n'cheerful alternative to the portalised monsters that dominated the landscape then, with no killer headcount to support, and well-presented, quality results

wabbadabba · 03-04-07

>>They're not bad. How much (if any) algorithmic control do you have?
I think we can change what we want, but would that help? We can't compete with the big guys over the quality. Is that what you think that we could improve the search results by adding some value , possibly a vertical?

>>I'd also suggest you read Rich Skrentas recent thoughts on this topic - >>http://www.skrenta.com/2007/03/how_t...le_part_1.html >>- you may find them timely.

Thanks for that. Nice post. I think we are doing what he says, we are not trying to beat the Google on their own game, we hope people can be bought

I think what we have is simple offering= search and win. We could think of many different angles how to improve our service, but we don't want to ruin that simplicity. We are trying to get PR with the webapp what we currently have.

Brendon · 03-04-07

>> We can't compete with the big guys over the quality.

Testicles. Of course you can. Google get slammed with more spam (web spma) than any other engine in history, and they do a so-so job of dealing with it, at best. Whilst you don't have access to the things G do, you don't have to "compete" with the worlds best spammers either. I think you get the best of that deal.

>> I think we can change what we want, but would that help?

Might do. Play with it, see what happens. Y engineers are hamstrung by a very restrictive internal bureacracy, which again, you don't have to deal with. Use that freedom.

Certainly, you could make qualititive improvements in verticals, by understanding what spam methods are popular in that niche, and devaluing them. You'd likely need a different set of changes per vertical, as you'd be "competing" against different communities of spammers, with their own techniques and preferences.

>> we hope people can be bought

LOL, yup. Teoma etc... of course, they did build their own crawling / indexing system too. Is that in the plans longer term? You should talk to people like Matt Wells (Gigablast), and Dave Naylor (now owns UKwizz) if you want to go down that route, or even if you don't, perhaps