Co-op Search Engines:
(January, 2009) Update – While I would rate this entire study a success because it allowed me to leverage my web directory traffic and provided me with some additional advertising revenue I have decided to massively scale it back because it appears I received a Google penalty by having empty (or near empty pages). I now changed the site to just be the single page with a search box and I will see if that allows me to get page rank and other rankings back.(May 16, 2007) Update – The search engine popularity tools are now showing over 4,000 backlinks in the major search engines and my search box now shows on approximately 18 websites. I have decided to only show my websites and those of my promotional partners in the search results. Originally I was showing Google results with my sites weighted more heavily and I was using the ‘omit site from results’ option to further skew the results in my favour but I found it was too time consuming to keep my directory results on the first page. So far this case study has been a great success and I even noticed that 10% of myAdsense income from last month was dervived from my search box results.
I am going to continue promoting this search engine and am now actively seeking partners to display my search box in exchange for listings in the results pages. I have also added three new pages to the search site, List of Free Web Directories – List of Paid Web Directories – List of Directory Resources.
I am thinking that when these pages get page rank on the next Google update in late July that I can start charging a review fee for people to list their sites on those pages. I have also added two Adsense units to the home page but I am not counting on them earning much since a majority of the searches done right now are probably from the search boxes on other sites. I am considering investing $50 in buying a large directory submission in order to try and bring some organic search directly to the google pages search site. I just need to find the time to choose a good company for the work.
Feb. 16, 2007 – Top Web Directory Search – I have obtained over 900 backlinks in the major search engines for this site and I have also placed my custom search box on around a dozen different sites. The advantage of getting my search code out there is that when folks use my custom search engine I have control over what results are shown (and I promote my own sites and those of my partners) my advertisments are also shown on those search pages. Here are various places you can view my custom search box (most of these spaces are rented for a 3 month evaluation period), Tech Top List Submit Page, a Sticky Thread on this Webmaster Forum, a space in the column of this Webmaster and SEO Blog and approximately 6 other sites.
Search for Top Blogs – I have obtained over 70 backlinks in the major search engines for this site.
Top Entertainment Search – I have obtained over 65 backlinks in the major search engines for this site.
Aug. 29, 2007 – So far this month I have had 355 searches completed and a grand total of over 2,100 since inception. I am basically letting this site grow organically from now on but I will still do a little promotion once-in-a-while. I am very pleased with these results and will start doing some SEO after the next Google update to see if I can score some good positions for related search terms.
May 16, 2007 – It has been three months since I began my project of incorporating Google Co-op Search and Googlepages. I have just cruised past the 900 search mark today and the google page site now has a page rank of 4. I have decided to add some more content to the site and also step up the promotion. I am now only including search results for my own sites and those of my promotional partners. I don’t really have a way of tracking how many conversions I get from searches performed through my search box but I am guesstimating the rate should be fairly high because of the specialized nature of the search. I am also updating the project page with further details at this time.
February 16, 2007 – I began doing some research into a new and interesting product Google is offering called Co-op Search. I was trying to think of how I might be able to leverage this powerful (and free) tool to help increase the income on my other sites (mainly my directories). I decided to create three different types of co-op search engines and use Google Pages (another free Google service) to aid in promoting them. I already had success with my very first Google Pages project, Best and Worst of the Web. This site has obtained a page rank of 4 and receives some regular traffic and has earned me a few bucks through Google Adsense and other text link promotions. Thus far I have only really been able to concentrate on one of the co-op search engines, you can see it here. More details on this case study can be viewed here.