Just when we thought Yahoo! would take the trophy as dumbest directory (for their decision to unilaterally change the email preferences of all of their members in order to spam them), good 'ole LookSmart comes from behind and wins it by a nose!

Last week I mentioned LookSmart's news of "upgrading" everyone's paid LookSmart listing to their wacky new "Small Business Listing" pay-per-click program. Well, some of the details have been released, and I'm sorry to say, it doesn't look good. For sites that obtain 100 clicks per month or less from LookSmart and its partners, first-year costs be a minimum of $229.00 according to my calculations. Subsequent years would cost a minimum of $180.00 (assuming they don't change the rules again, which is a HUGE assumption). These numbers come from the $49.00 setup fee for new URLs, plus the minimum $15.00/month clickthrough charge per URL. Clicks are 15 cents apiece, thus the 100-clicks-per-month number.

At first glance, those numbers appear to be actually less than the $299.00 we were previously paying; however, the old price was a one-time fee. Plus, if you anticipate more than 100 clicks per month, you could end up paying a whole lot more.

You're also only allowed one URL per domain under the Small Business Listing plan, and subdomains are considered part of the same domain, according to their FAQ. You'll be even happier to know that there are many more ways for Look$mart to take your money. For instance, you can pay them extra to have keywords associated with your listing. (Yes, this is something they used do for your listing for "free" before.) It's difficult to say whether your site will rank highly enough to get any clicks if you don't associate keywords with it. You can pay for additional categories, description changes and all sorts of other fun things if you're interested. (All the gory details can be found here: <http://listings.looksmart.com/>.)

As of this writing, there is no news on what happens to those of us who just forked over $299 for our listing.

Right now, it's hard to recommend this program to you or my clients. In fact, because they're nickel and diming everyone (along with changing the rules in the middle of the game), I'd personally love to see everyone tell LookSmart to go jump in a lake! But business is business, and that may be easier said than done. For now, I'm taking a wait-and-see attitude. I want to see what they do with my recent $299, and I want to see how many clicks the sites I already have listed with them will get. I will NOT authorize them to make any charges to my credit card until I see how this plays out. I can easily live without my sites being listed with LookSmart if that's what it comes down to.

I understand that LookSmart has to make money just like the rest of us; however, as a businessperson myself, I have learned that people don't like being charged separately for all sorts of different things. It makes you look like you're only after their money, no matter what kind of spin you put on it. Offering one fee for a whole package of stuff sounds and feels much better psychologically to the customer. It seems to me that LookSmart would have been much smarter to simply do what Yahoo! did, i.e., make the current $299.00 charge as an annual fee for all new listings. Yeah, they would have taken some crap for it at the beginning, but I have a feeling what they're gonna get now will be far worse.

I gotta say that I will take great delight if/when this turns out to be the death of LookSmart. Their true, sleazy nature is showing through loud and clear with this move. Honest, ethical businesses do NOT change the rules in the middle of the game. They just don't. First, we learned of their association with scumware, Ezula <http://scumware.com/hall1.html>, and now this. Yes, LookSmart, we do see your true colors, and they're not pretty.

(Update:)

Last week I gave you my negative opinion on LookSmart and their newchange-the-rules-in-the-middle-of-the-game business model. As time passes, things are looking even worse than I had originally thought. If you've checked your LookSmart accounts, you may find that you'll use up your *free* clicks within a few days or weeks, and would have to pay thousands of dollars a month just to maintain the clicks you were previously getting. Thanks for the "upgrade," LookSmart. Rather than talking about them again (and because I really don't feel like setting my blood a-boil), I'll just direct you to this anonymous satirical letter from "ActDumb":

<http://www.ihelpyouservices.com/forums/t2819/s.html>.

No, I didn't write it, but I wish I had; it's right on the mark!