Hello travis558,
Thank you for your question
It appears to do exactly that. However, it will work with either ANY
browser, or at least any browser that is based on Internet Explorer
and has installed their software utility. It may and may not work with
Mozilla, for example, or other browsers that are not a "wrapper" for
Internet Explorer.
They have an online demo that actually reproduces a small part of your
browser's toolbar and allows you to "test" their system. I use a very
esoteric browser called MyIE2 and I have it skinned. It appeared in
their demo window exactly as it appears on my screen. So they have
some intelligent software on their end that was peeking into my
machine. Even with a firewall installed.
You can download their software and install it locally, however I
chose not to for several reasons:
1. I *suspect* there might be spyware associated with this product.
Without testing, I can not say for sure, but it would not surprise me.
For one thing, their security certificate that pops up before agreeing
to the install is unsigned. It is a red flag for me.
2. *Some* products like this, that are add-ins to a browser, are very
hard to uninstall. Often, they do not properly clean the registry if
you later decide to remove them. I am cautious with what I install on
my machine. I do not like my computer "phoning home" to deliver
demograhics on me or my computer use. Of course, I need to emphasize
that I do not know this for sure, I only have suspicions based on
experience with similar programs and utilities and being a long time
user of AD-Aware, a free program to find and remove "spyware".
That being said, it does seem to work as both you and they describe.
Apparently, they sell a keyword to one vendor. When I typed in
"software", I was brought to Amazon's software sales pages. "Pizza"
takes you to Pizza Hut. Car to GM. Which made me wonder what happens
if I were to type "automobile"? Surprisingly, it is available to buy
as a keyword. So, if GM really wanted to be covered, they would need
to purchase additional keywords such as "automobile", "auto" and
perhaps even "vehicle".
I'm sure you have visited their site, but just in case, here are a few
things they mention:
http://www.ie8keywords.com/index.htm
"Upgrade your browser to include Keywords, Inc. fast search technology
and now your address bar will give you the quickest and easiest way to
search online. No matter what information you need or want you can now
find it fast!
If you need more traffic to your web site contact us today! We can
help change the destiny of your online business!...
Services
If you need new clients, want to get ahead of you competition our
solutions provide the fastest and easiest way to direct drive business
to your website. How does it work? It this easy! Instead of typing in
a long URL including http:// or www.yourname.com/filename.html to get
to your site all your customers need to do is type in what their
looking for. With KEYWORDS just type in one, two or more words of what
your looking for into the browsers address bar and go right to your
site. YES YOUR SITE! Not a long list of websites, including your
competitors, JUST YOUR SITE!
Q: How will this help my Business?
Imagine all your current and new clients finding just your business
online! Not other websites, just your business. They just use ordinary
search words just as they already know. With our fast search
technology, your customers don't need to remember a long web site
address complicated Web address with www's, com's, .net etc. They
simply type your registered KEYWORDS into the Web Browsers Address Bar
and go straight to your website by-passing any list of web sites and
your competition. We call it Natural Word Navigation. With KEYWORDS
navigation of any intended information through the Internet is
completed by means of direct, precise words."
The also have a privacy policy, which is a good sign of integrity
behind the company:
"We at Keywords, Inc. consider your privacy concerns to be of
paramount importance. This Privacy Policy informs you about our
practices that impact your privacy. By registering an Keyword(s)and/or
using Keyword to navigate across the Internet, you are accepting the
practices described in this Privacy Policy. In this Policy, "we,"
"us," "our" and "ours" shall refer to Keywords, Inc..
This Privacy Policy contains three distinct sections, depending on how
you interact with us. It is possible that you fall into one, two, or
even all three of these categories:
·Registrant: You may be a customer of ours who registers an Keyword.
·End User: You may be an end-user of the Keywords, Inc. Navigation
Service by your using Keywords, Inc. -- as they are integrated into
browsers, search engines, and third-party software applications --to
access particular web pages on the Internet.
Please refer to the sections of this Privacy Policy that apply to you,
whether as a Registrant, Visitor, and/or End User..."
You might wish to read this in full:
http://www.ie8keywords.com/privacy.htm
However, they also say:
"Information We Collect from End Users
If you are an End User, none of your personally identifiable
information is obtained or otherwise collected by Keywords, Inc..
However, as End Users navigate using Keywords, Inc. they must pass
through our servers and in those servers we log anonymous information
such as the Keywords used, IP address, type of browser, and time the
Keywords is used. We collect this information in order to aggregate it
into reports about our service..."
In my opinion, IP address is NOT "anonymous information".
It is also interesting that the privacy policy refers to another site
- www.keywords.com
Targeted Traffic
Reach 75% of the Internet by advertising with Overture!
Sign up through bCentral now and receive a credit to your Overture
account.
Reach
Overture search results reach 75% of all Internet users through their
affiliate partner network, which includes leading Web properties such
as Microsoft Internet Explorer, America Online, Lycos, AltaVista and
many others.
Traffic
Overture delivers over 700 million searches every month to its
advertisers.
Targeting
Users actively type in your search terms and choose your listings,
providing your site with self-qualified leads!
Cost effectiveness
For as little as $20 a month, you can drive customers to your site.
With Overture, you pay for actual clicks, you don't pay for
impressions
A Google Search on "ie8keywords" produced no hits. Nor were any found
on Google Groups. Nor did www.ie8keywords.com
Searching www.keywords.com produced one hit to the bCentral page
mentioned above. So, since there appears to be little mention of them
on the Internet and no discussions I could find - either positive or
negative- I would have to assume that they have a small user base and
need a great deal more marketing to develop a base of customers using
the product and bringing value to their advertisers.
I trust my research has answered this question. If I have missed
addressing anything you expected in this answer or if a link above
should fail to work, please do post a Request for Clarification prior
to rating the answer and closing the question and I will be pleased to
assist further.
Regards,
-=clouseau=- |
Clarification of Answer by
clouseau-ga
on
08 Apr 2003 16:49 PDT
Hello again travis558,
Thanks for asking for clarification and I'm sorry a was a bit unclear
in that first paragraph.
What these folks have is a utility that must be downloaded and
installed to work with an existing browser. In that respect, it is a
lot like the add-on from Google, the Google Toolbar -
http://toolbar.google.com/ . It works with browsers other than that
from MSN8 as I mentioned, and worked with mine which is a bit unique
and called MyIE2. There are many, I am sure, that will also work such
as Netcaptor, Crazy Browser, etc., as these are all based on the
Internet Explorer browser and actually act as a "wrapper" to the
Microsoft browser. In other words, they use the Microsoft IE engine
and add useful features to the interface creating an enhanced product.
I suspect that browsers not based on IE *may* have a problem with this
software, but also may not. Netscape or Mozilla come to mind, as they
often do not either display properly or function properly with third
party utilities. ie8keywords may and may not have taken this into
consideration.
In order for their service to work, the browser must have their
software utility installed. As you note, it appears that it does not
install from a download of the browser when you subscribed to MSN8,
though you are told the CD will include this as an option that you can
install when it arrives. I can tell you that IE6 does not install
this, nor does the SBC / Yahoo browser. I suspect there are very few
that add this utility automatically, if any at all, and very few that
even will offer you the option to install this without going to the
ie8keywords site to install this utility.
Since it is not already installed and there is precious little on the
web about them, I can only surmise very few people have even heard of
this and fewer yet avail themselves of this service. I consider myself
VERY Internet savvy, and I had not heard of this previously. In
addition, I would never use this tool as I would much prefer to find
hits on more than Pizza Hut when typing "pizza" in the address bar to
search. I would expect multiple pizza parlors as well as even recipes.
If I need to be more exact, I would try a better search string, such
as "pizza +recipe +authentic +italian". If I really wanted Pizza Hut,
typing that into Google would oblige me with proper choices.
To answer your clarification request, no - I don't think there is
value today in purchasing their keywords. Perhaps they can show a
broad installed user base, but I would be surprised. I would wait
before investing in this form of advertising until there is a proven
assessment that people desire and are using their service and utility.
As web_connoisseur-ga mentions in the comment below:
"...There are many companies claiming to do this, but the truth is
that you have to download their plug-in to make it work. Personally, I
avoid these companies like the plague. How are they convincing the
public that their plug-in is necessary? I bet they could build a
program that would make your companies logo fly all over the screen
everytime the user opens a software program, but the truth is that the
user has no interest in this..."
I most heartily agree with this assessment.
Best regards,
-=clouseau=-
|
