by Ernest on July 3, 2009
It seems as though the whispers and rumours that have been landing on our ears in recent months have mostly come true. We haven’t published most of them as you can’t usually rely on rumour sources. However, it appears as though our network of unwitting snitches have had some grounding to their comments. The latest being the proposal that Lloyds TSB are planning to pull their insurance comparison services.
So how’s this new one – it is ‘rumoured’ that Legal and General are considering a bid to buy the successful life insurance broker ClickLife. We know that ClickLife have been falling over themselves to buy any data going (and a lot that’s not!). Perhaps a sign of the huge margins they can make? Perhaps a sign of the increased competitiveness in the life insurance market?
Could it be that ClickLife recognise they’ve hit a critical mass and they either need big investment to launch themselves into the minds of the wider public or they need the stability of flying under the wing of a massive corporation such as Legal and General? Maybe the current owners think they’ve peaked?
Does anyone know anything about this proposed bid? It could make for an interesting change in the UK life insurance sector or simply be a large corporation headline for a few months and before resulting in business as usual for the rest of the market.
by Ernest on July 2, 2009
@Isis: “Has anyone heard rumours regarding Lloydstsbcompare withdrawing from the market?”
We have now. We’ve heard about three or four different people from various corners of the insurance market tells us that Lloyds TSB are withdrawing their insurance comparison services from the market – insurance.co.uk and Lloyds TSB Compare.
Not bad for a comparison service which reached the dizzy heights of being awarded Defaqto’s best car insurance comparison website in 2008. If this is story is true, I wonder what it says about Lloyds TSB Compare or Defaqto? Obviously customers are looking for different things to the Defaqto rater(s). Confirmation for what we all already knew then!!
What does everyone know?
by George on June 18, 2009
Simonseeks.com is a new travel website launched by Simon Nixon of Moneysupermarket fame. What’s interesting about this new venture is that it’s a pure user generated content model with financial rewards for content writers.
This will re-ignite the content for cash debate although this is slightly different. “Monetising Quality Editorial” is the marketing spin on this egotistical travel adventure: simonseeks!
The FT and a few other news sites have already picked up the story and Simon has been on the new twitter account detailing launch.
Let’s see how this one goes….
- I wonder whether the logo designer was using skype when the simonseeks logo was created?
- Simon, please hire an SEO agency to configure your Drupal install!
by Ernest on June 9, 2009
Just in case anyone out there has bought into Google’s models and put complete faith in the almighty power, here’s a quick reminder that the Google algorithm is never working at 100%. Here we have an example where Aviva Car Insurance and Norwich Union Car Insurance have managed to get on the first SERP page in Google for one of the UK’s most competitive search phrases despite serving identical content (differentiated purely by a URL variable).
If analysts suggest the magic “E” or magic “F” concept with your natural and paid campaigns can sum more of its parts in CTR, I wonder what a double wammy on car insurance would give you (normally served without a news article in between) in positions three and four.
by George on May 22, 2009
No doubt attempting to mimic the success of the Fluxbabes, Trident Insurance have launched their own brand example with the strap line “putting the bounce back in your finances”. (Ed: Definitely a Friday post!)
by George on May 13, 2009
Google continue to roll out more tools for SEOs. Useful if you’re doing research in to markets, keywords and competitors.
SEO Wonderwheel
For the blackhats: I’m looking forward to everyone trying to game those forum and review links. It appears to be much more open than the Google News ’selected’ listings.
by George on May 13, 2009
There’s been some fairly interesting chatter in the SEO world over the last few days due to a suspected BigMouthMedia penalisation. We’re not ones to jump to conclusions(!) but there doesn’t appear to be a clear answer. So, let’s look at what has been happening.
Background
Big Mouth Media (BMM), Europe’s largest independent digital marketing agency have been growing at a significant rate from their inception in 1997. With reputable board members including Lastminute’s CEO Ian McCaig and MTV’s executive Richard Tan, they have kept a high profile and respectable ship. BMM are also known for their long term, white hat tactics…. [click to continue…]
PeoplesChoice has launched as the new charity aggregator. Peopleschoice.com is a new insurance comparison site with a twist. In an attempt to compete with the massive budgets of confused, comparethemarket and moneysupermarket, it’s using the one USP that nobody else has.
Peoples Choice – Comparison, but with a difference
As a Not For Profit, it is giving away £10 of the money received from insurance partners to charities. Customers can choose which charity will receive the money
Who’s behind it
Peoples Choice Limited is a not-for-profit organisation joint venture by Hastings Insurance and Insurancewide.com
The Competition
There doesn’t appear to be anyone at the moment. There are cashback sites like greasypalm and quidco but this appears to be on its own. The PPC bidding wars have already begun with BeatThatQuote still bidding on the term whilst AdrianFlux appear to be quick to get in before the bids increase. It will be interesting to see how this turns out…
by George on April 24, 2009
Are Content Now creating the next digitalpoint Co-Op Network? The latest round of google bans has pointed the finger at some blackhat link building techniques – link requests.
What’s the story?
Companies wishing to improve their Google rankings hire Content Now for ‘ethical link building’. Content Now or one of its subsidiaries use a boilerplate email to request links. Once a webmaster has taken the bait, they begin a secure communique via a password protected interface accessible via safer-response.co.uk. What proceeds is a standard cooperative link exchange content for links exchange which bares the hallmarks of the link exchange of the DigitalPoint Co-Op Network.
Who’s behind this?
It looks like it has been started by Chris Young Kieron Donoghue and Simon Snelling who set up w3alliance and searchsciences
Is it working?
It doesn’t appear so. GoCompare have been penalised and we’re keeping an eye on Broadband Expert. There are plenty more clients but they have been outed yet so we’re keeping quiet for the moment. It’s not a very elegant campaign – the procedure is easy to spot and in the current market, you can’t look for quick wins without taking a big risk.
Update
Kieron responds
by George on April 22, 2009
Gocompare have done it again – banned from Google. They recently started their old techniques of requesting links from webmasters. They now don’t appear in the search results for their name [gocompare]. Lucky FairInvestment are taking up the challenge whilst GoCompare scramble around.
It looks like they’ve increased their ad spend on Adwords to try to get some more traffic! Come on GoCompare! It’s not the first time you’ve been banned.
Note: to our well-read users, it’s technically a penalty, not a ban.
What Happened?
It looks like they are back to their old link building tricks!
Hi – I`m Alex Jones, Website Manager at gocompare.com….The content will contain a single unobtrusive text link in it back to a relevant page on our site…
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