[Question] Anan**, what's going on here?

[Wolf]

Hi guys,

I have a question to all our search engine specialists here. Following situation: I am advertising my website through Facebook, Google AdWords and now also on Anan**.

Google and Facebook delivered good results for me, immediate action the moment my ads went live. Then recently I got a call from A***** asking me if I am interested to buy some keywords exclusively, those search queries will then show a nice banner on top of the site. I was thinking about it and asked them for a report of the specific keywords. And this showed the following: (apparently from month June, my business is rather a summer thing though).

keyword 1: 1800 (Google SA: 720)
keyword 2: 1650 (Google SA: 28, Google UK: 1300, Google Global: 3600)
keyword 3: 1700 (Google SA: 22)
keyword 4: 1600 (Google SA: 590)
keyword 5: 1400 (Google SA: Not enough data, Google Unites States: Not enough data, Google global: 28)
Total: 8150 (Google SA: 1360)

First of all it looks very unrealistic to me that this search engine has so many more search queries than Google South Africa, especially keyword 2, A***** has almost 50% of the global google search queries? Hm...

And here comes my problem. When I turn Google AdWords on I get results almost immediately, when I pause it, it stops. Same on Facebook. But on A*****? 8150 search queries of my exclusive keywords last month, equals 263 a day. You don't have to be the smartest to figure out that I should have 263 impressions of my banner average a day. But what I DO have is: ZERO, NADA, NIENTE, absolutely nothing. I did not have one single impression within 48 hours. So can please anyone tell me if I am wrong to say that this kind of online advertising does not need any lead time. Go live, get results. They are trying to tell me that it takes a while to show results because my banner is new. I am sorry but I have trouble believing this. Google AdWords doesn't need and lead time either. So please correct my if I'm mistaken, but I feel there is something not kosher and I should get out of this 12 months contract immediately.

If anyone is interested in knowing the keywords I can send it in a private message.

Can't wait to read your opinions about this.

Thanks

W.

[Dave A]

I assume anan** = ananzi.

It really does look suspicious, and it's not just the bigger-than-the-big-G numbers. But assuming it is a real number they've extracted somehow:

Looking at those nice, round numbers, this could indicate they're showing server hits rather than page delivery counts and there happens to be 50 hits per page return.

The lack of banner impressions means they could be counting bot crawl hits too. Most bots don't pull images and won't pull the banner, especially if it is initiated through a javascript call.

[Marq]

I have also had the sales pitch from Ananzi and had my doubts on the numbers and what they were selling. Seems to be the same as Easy Info, Braby's and a host of other directory type services in SA. They seem to believe that we are all internet challenged and need their fantastic service and help.....ha

[IanF]

Did the call start with "can I speak to the owner?" That is the easyinfo tactic. I got caught once with this. Now I just say the owner isn't in can they send an email with the info. 90% of the time this stops the call and no email received.

[Marq]

With this 'can I speak to the owner' stuff, the routine goes like this:-

"Why do you want to speak to the owner?"
"Oh.. so that I know that I am talking to the person making the decisions?"
"Are you going to sign the contact and make the decisions on your side after we have come to some sort of conclusion?"
"....No"
"Are you not the owner of the business selling the product you want to talk to me about?"
"...No"
"Then put your owner on the line now and get me someone that can make decisions!"

I have yet to speak to an owner selling this BS on the phone....so cannot tell you what happens next....but it will be along the lines of - next time you want to sell stuff to this owner, you had better make sure you as the owner of your business pick up the phone and not instruct your lackey to waste my time.

As you can see I have lots of time to waste during the day having these inane conversations - not really, but I use them as a break and to bring humour into my life.

[Wolf]

Day 4 and still no referrer from Ananzi.

I obviously got fooled big times with their funny keyword phantasy numbers. I should have done my homework BEFORE signing the contract. I was already suspicious but couldn't believe that such a company would come up with stories. FYI, I am not South African, so I am no so overly alert to this kind of BS yet.

I actually can't remember if this conversation also started with "can I speak to the owner", i hear that so often by now. But from now on I will just say: "depends on who wants to talk to him".

I was actually hoping to be able to switch AdWords off once Ananzi is on because AdWords is a bit pricey. But since I still don't have ONE SINGLE CLICK I don't believe this is a good idea. Damnit, I am so pissed off. So I will wait for another couple of days and then write an email and go to the bank to have the debit order cancelled. And then I will write my experience on Hello Peter. This is absolutely ridiculous and I will definitely let the public know.

Time to look for a proper SEO company.

[Wolf]

I am so angry right now that I wrote the guy from Ananzi an email now to cancel this agreement immediately. And I am going to the bank on Monday for a stop order. I am not willing to pay 1 cent to them. This is close to fraud. It is ridiculous to tell me it'll get better over time if I don't have 1 single click after 4 days. This will not change suddenly to 20 clicks a day just because it is active for 4 weeks already.

Shame on you Ananzi, I am definitely going to report this.

[Wolf]

1 week and not one single banner delivered. how busy...

I just tried to call them to speak to someone in regards to statistics. Can you believe that they do not give you this information and they did not connect me to someone except the person who gave me the information in the first place but he isn't there.

THIS IS VERY FISHY!!! Going to write a complaint on hello peter now.

[Dave A]

I wonder how they're tracking and generating their stats.

Looking at what Alexa reports, the irony is a lot of their traffic comes from Google anyway.

[Wolf]

They finally cancelled the contract after writing a complaint. I can't believe what a failure this was, not one single click, unbelievable.

[Dave A]

So can we take it you don't recommend advertising on Ananzi, Wolf?

[daveob]

[Dave A]

[Wolf]

So can we take it you don't recommend advertising on Ananzi, Wolf?

No Dave, considering that they even gave me false keyword I would not recommend this to anyone. It was extremely disappointing.

I still can't believe I didn't even get 1 click.