Syzlak’s SEM

123s of Search Engine Efficiency

Posted on: October 2, 2007 by Syzlak

I work with some horrible search engines.

After running a campaign on ABCSearch for months (reader remembers when I first wrote about 3rd Tier engines) I saw traffic for the first time last week. Anxious to build a report for my client, I went to their reporting center and this was a link on their reporting page:

Download Report In XL sheet

XL!!!! XL!!!! A gigantic sheet will deliver your report!!! Not an MS Licensed product. Do you know what happens when you click it? It takes you to a new screen where you have to re-enter the dates you want the report to cover. Then you click a button that says:

Upload Report

Really? Could this be more amateur? At this point, not only do I have no idea where these ads are being displayed, but I also have no reporting to study. Fantastic work! I know that some of you out there will suggest calling support…this may be more inept than their site. One day I called support at the behest of my client (he was concerned that we hadn’t seen traffic, I was sure that we may never) asking if there was anything we should try to increase our presence. The response?

Increase your bids on the keywords

Really? That’s it? Did you not look at my campaign? Do you not realize that increasing bids does nothing for you if you’re already ranked #1? Moments like these I’m glad I’m not the SEOHack, I’m glad that I have a calm button on my person. However, it still infuriates me that search engines exist with this level of ineptitude. Have a UI that makes sense! Hire and train your employees! Don’t recruit businesses to advertise on your search “network” if they won’t have traction.

Funny, just now current future ex-Mrs. Syzlak texted me:

why cant people just admit it when they don’t know how to do something. i work with such bozos i swear

So do I.