(Submitted by invitation of a forum host, Brittany.)

Dear Garrett:


I just resigned Overture because I found it to be a waste of money and time.

Like all other Overture subscribers I placed x dollars on deposit with their firm. Within my industry, log home building, I selected my key words
and agreed to pay $0.10 per click through. This month I was notified that Overture had a $20 per minimum and that were deducting $17 and change from my account. This means we had about 26 visitors who used Overture to click through to our web site and we paid $17.40 for those that do not click through. We were ranked #22 on Overture.


I have ten years Internet experience and I am not a novice to the SEO game. So I logged in to make changes. Overture is undoubtedly the most cumbersome system to use. Deletions are impossible, additions and updates take days to make. But, you can raise your bid fee instantly. There has to be a better way to conduct business. The bidding on Overture is up to $0.75 per click through in the log home industry. For small business people this is unreasonable. Overture claims 94,000 log home clicks through per year if you are #1-2-3. That is $70,500 per year. The firms who are currently in the top positions cannot sustain this bite. I know them by reputation well. They are gambling with the success and survival of their company. It takes two to three years to educate a prospective log home buyer to the point where they can make an educated purchasing decision.


I have spoken to log home firms who have spent $20,000 to build an outstanding web site. Then they spent $10,000 per month to be placed in the top ten of the major search engines. At the end of six months they had no sales resulting from an Internet click though and they were out $80,000.

I believe that search engines are helpful but next to the Federal Reserve, war and taxes are the biggest rip off of American industry ever.


I know you promote them because your advertising department said to do it. I challenge you to send this letter out for feedback.


There are better ways to drive Internet traffic to our web sites. I am going to find all of them and reduce my dependence on SE's as much as possible.


Kind regards,

Martin Lee Turnbull
www.loghomes.com
719 534 9777

PS...

Here is a little after thought. Anyone can buy their way into the top ten of each SE, but at what cost? Being in the top ten and getting click throughs does not guarantee business for many businesses on the Internet today. Purchasing a log home is not an impulse decision.