[Note: This message has been edited by Janet Berg]

More importantly why is overture implementing this? Is it because they know this will force the bid prices up because advertisers are going to have to keep their bids high to avoid being bumped out of the top three. Otherwise how are we going to sleep at night? Overture probably does not like programs like bidright because bidright saves advertisers money by closing bid gaps and keeping bids low. The way I see it most bid cycles start off low then go high and then they come back down again. With these new rules bids will remain high in order to maintain position. Overture's arguement of "it is a strain on our servers" is not credible. With the money they are making they can just upgrade their systems. First these arbitrary, impossible and non sensical guidelines and now this bid restriction...i wish I could treat my customers like this. This is why I hate monopolies. Lets face it Overture is walking all over its customers. There is no appreciation or loyallty from them. You know with bidright I finally found a way to control my costs and I found a way not to have to sit on my desktop all day to adjust my bids. Overture really is sticking it to us good on this one...and they must be laughing all the way to the bank.

Can you predict my search engine ranking for the next 12 months????? I need to KNOW!!! LOL...

[ sig removed ]

[This message has been edited by Jim (edited 02-21-2002).]

>Overture probably does not like programs
>like bidright because bidright saves
>advertisers money by closing bid gaps and
>keeping bids low.

Not so. Over loves bidright and tools like it, because they foster competition, and competition moves all bids up. Bid gaps are bad for over, because they help maintain the status quo in the rankings.

If over didn't like bidright et al. they would simply keep them out of their system.

No links from us.

I personally did not think Overture would ever limit the number of bid changes per day, although a lot of other members in these forums disagreed with me.

It sounds like I was wrong, because I trust that BidRight has inside information.

In the first email I received on 2-9-02 from BidRight they claim that, "to reduce the strain on Overture's servers, all licensees have agreed to limit automated bid changes to six per keyword per day (this applies to Overture only)."

Later that day they sent a second email to clarify some points. In that email they stated, "Tools that do not have an agreement with Overture (and hence do not abide by the restriction) will have steps taken against them by Overture."

So given this information, I think Overture is preparing to start limiting the allowable frequency in bid changes. They may not have announced anything yet, to give time for the developers of BidRight and similiar products so that they can test and implement these changes. At the same time Overture is probably testing the changes also.

This doesn't mean that Overture doesn't like 3rd party tools such as BidRight, otherwise they wouldn't officially approve them as a 3rd party tools.

Finally, here are the entire 2 emails I received from BidRight:

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Dear BidRight Customer,

We are pleased to announce that BidRight is now an Overture approved third party tool. As a result of the agreement reached, you can expect many developments in the next few weeks and into the future. Overture's program will greatly enhance the stability and ease at which BidRight operates. One change that will take place is that BidRight will be split into two separate programs with one of the programs dedicated to managing Overture accounts and the other to managing other PPCs. This will allow us to implement the changes and enhancements that are unique to Overture account management. Current users will receive both programs at no charge when they are released. The current version will continue to function as is until Overture makes a change to the direct traffic center, so it will not be mandatory to update to the new programs. Also, to reduce the strain on Overture's servers, all licensees have agreed to limit automated bid changes to six per keyword per day (this applies to Overture only). You will still be able to change bids with BidRight at any time manually. To adjust for this, BidRight will be enhanced to allow you to customize your bidding strategy and to alert you when bids need to be changed manually. Finally, in the near future, the third party tool process of checking and changing bids will be enhanced to provide bid changes that will be quicker, result in fewer errors, take much less of a load on your internet connection, and use fewer system resources. Thank you for your support and please continue to send us your suggestions for new features.

BidRight Support

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Dear BidRight Customer,

It seems that there is a little confusion as to the details of the changes being made especially in regards to the 6 changes per keyword per day restriction. The following is more information for clarification:

1. Manual changes are defined as keyword bid changes you make by clicking on the appropriate icons and keywords in BidRight. You may do this as frequently as you wish.

2. Tools that do not have an agreement with Overture (and hence do not abide by the restriction) will have steps taken against them by Overture.

3. Customers that use third party tools and services that are not approved by Overture may face having their accounts suspended or terminated.

4. Also note that your current version will continue to function as is until Overture makes changes to the DTC.

Thank you.

BidRight Support

This rule is probably being implemented before every advertiser is using automated updates, checking prices every 15 seconds.

Who the heck is going to spend any money on an autobid program when you can only update once every four hours (averaged). Give me a break, "load on the servers" well no crap, take some of the 6-8 thousand dollars I am paying you every month and buy some new freaking servers and pay for some extra damn bandwidth.

This is going to put pay per click auto update software companies out of business or at least serously tread on the Black/Red line. How can you (the consumer) justify to yourself or "the boss" the spending of any money on something that essentially has to be done manually anyway. The programs will no longer serve any valuable purpose.

Let's see, $100.00 to update six times a day automatically or a combined total of 10 minutes out of my day to update every half hour. Gee, tuff choice.

I am kind of incoherently rambling because of all the money spent to have "Lifetime Memberships" to this software that is absolutely useless. Is once every hour really all that much to ask, I think not. OK I am going now, needed to get that off my chest, yet I don't feel any better.

PPS

What would be nice is if Overture created some type of DTC that these tools could hook directly into that didn't serve up all the graphics and other garbage HTML that these tools don't use. I bet they could drop their bandwidth by at least 90% when they were working with these tools. Then kick us back an increased number of bid changes a day. That sounds like win-win to me.

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Thank you!

I spend a chunk of cash with Overture, and I would think that they could take a small fraction of that income and use it for upgrades and bandwidth, and still be plenty profitable.

I do also agree that Overture should allow more direct access to bid management tools, although I don't think the speed up would be extremely beneficial it would help.