There is a firestorm of negative press regarding LookSmart's 
recent marketing stumbles via numerous discussion groups, 
including two of the oldest and most influential, I-Search 
and I-Advertising Digests. Most of the critiques center on 
LookSmart's inability to develop programs that are well 
matched for SMB/SME ("small to medium business or enterprise" 
with revenue in the $5-50M range), their lack of customer 
responsiveness and the difficulty in managing their new 
"pay per click" traffic generating program. 

Many of us in the agency/marketing services world relied 
upon LookSmart's directory in the early days; especially as 
an offset to Yahoo's "my way or the highway" attitude when 
they became the 200 pound gorilla in the marketplace So, 
it's sad to say, but LookSmart appears to be morphing to 
just another portal with little marketing awareness of 
how to work effectively with the tens of millions of SMB 
companies that have rapidly embraced a web-centric business 
model. 
 
One of the core issues that frustrates many small businesses 
is the difficulty in getting a listing that actually describes 
their company, products, services accurately - to add insult 
to injury, you have to pay in some cases twice to have your 
listing upgraded. Apparently, LookSmart's editorial staff 
can't keep up with the demand, or is so pressured to maintain 
some internal quote their descriptions suffer accordingly. 

LookSmart's new "pay per click" "Small Business Listings" 
program is simply not "small business friendly". It is a 
complex program with lots of important details buried in 
an FAQ that has to be read carefully as there are some 
"gotchas" in the small print - including being forced to 
wait up to 90 days for the return of the upfront deposit 
of $150. and paying a setup fee for a listing; but having 
it deactivated when you exceed the dollar amount of your 
"monthly click limit." I can understand their dropping the 
listing once you exceed your budget, but it does not seem 
equitable to charge $49. to setup the listing in the first 
place - your in essence subsidizing LookSmart's cost of 
doing business. 

We've found inconsistencies in LookSmart's stated Privacy 
program versus inbound e-mail traffic we've received from 
them over the past 3-6 months. We've unsubscribed 3-4 times 
and still keep getting self-promotional marketing materials 
which are not of any value, other than promoting LookSmart's 
business. They are clearly not adhering to their stated privacy 
policy and to compound matters, our complaints have not been 
addressed via their customer service department. 

So, if you're an SMB company what are your alternatives to 
working with LookSmart? We would recommend your assessing 
Google's new "AdWords Select" program which is geared more 
for business of all sizes; but, I must warn you there is some 
complexity in setting up this type of program as well. But, 
you certainly get much more coverage with Google - their 
rapidly becoming the dominant search engine du jour with 
approximately 40% market share of all combined searches. 

Inktomi's "Search Submit" program should also be assessed as 
an alternative to working with LookSmart and as an adjunct 
to an existing Search Engine or Marketing program. They have 
partnered with some of the same companies that LookSmart is 
working with, including MSN, AOL, iWon, and many others. They 
offer very good value for the cost, charging a nominal fee 
$39. for the first URL and $25. for additional URLs to have 
your web site "crawled" (assessed or indexed) on a regular 
basis for one year and sharing this information with the 
most heavily used search engines on the web. 

Finally, you may want to consider utilizing standard pay per 
click ("PPC") search engines to drive qualified traffic to 
your web site and/or looking at competitive PPC programs 
offered by LookSmart's competitors including Yahoo, AOL, Alta 
Vista and others. Overture (formerly GoTo) is the dominant 
market leader in the pure PPC market that can deliver a great 
deal of traffic. But, there are approximately 150 second tier 
pay per click search engines operating at present and you 
should be able to leverage your marketing costs by carefully 
analyzing your "keyword costs" via some of these PPC search 
engines including Kanoodle, FindWhat, Sprinks and many others.