| Q: |
What sponsorship plans are available? |
| A: |
The Sponsorship program is a prepaid click based plan.
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| Q: |
How does the pay per click plan work? |
| A: |
At the start of February 2002, each ISP in the directory was allocated 100 "free" clicks.
New ISPs are given between 25 and 100 free clicks. When the number of remaining clicks approaches
zero, you'll need to purchase clicks to remain in the directory. The price per click is $1.00 ($US). You can
buy as few or as many clicks as you like ($50 minimum to open the account). When the remaining clicks reaches zero, the ISP will no longer appear in the online directory, except
by using the "search by ISP Name".
Prepaid clicks are refundable after 10 business days if you decide later to be removed from the sponsorship plan.
|
| Q: |
I can buy clicks at the acmeClickFactory directory for $.02 a click - why would I pay you $1.00? |
| A: |
Focused Results with complete accountability for the quality. By the time a visitor to FindAnISP.com clicks on your ISP, they already
- Know that your ISP has a local access number in their local calling area
- Have compared you to the competition
- read user reviews (if they exist)
- Looked at the pricing and feature information and are ready to investigate your
web site and are looking for your phone number.
Based on data from our existing sponsors, between 1 in 5 and 1 in 15 clickthroughs should result in a signup.
That means your actual cost per acquisition becomes $5-$15 per sub. Your results may vary - but that was the
point of giving you the free clicks before requiring the $50 to sign up - to see if this plan is cost-effective for you.
Other Directories give you only raw click counts - we give you a complete real time database query of EVERY clickthrough, including the IP address, Host name (if in DNS), and the city name
the visitor was searching. You won't be getting incentivized traffic from some third party bingo site
that requires bored people to click on a banner ad to keep playing bingo... (one of our
own actual experiences along the way).
We track sessions using cookies, and will not charge for a second click
from the same computer, even if it is weeks later. We are finding that many customers go on a
scouting trip about a week before they actually decide on which ISP to choose.
The recent bid on Overture for the term "ISP" is 4.60.
While Overture does filter traffic to the country of origin of the visitor, they cannot filter visitors to the city - FindAnISP can. A large
percentage of people looking for an ISP live in small towns and rural areas. If someone in Pierre, South Dakota
clicks on your ISP link in Overture, and you have no POP in Pierre, you just flushed $4.60 down the drain. (or the amount you bid
to be at the bottom of the third page).
|
| Q: |
What is a "valid clickthrough"? |
| A: |
We've been tracking the activity of the web site since Spring of 2001 - the
clickthrough tracking is about as good as it can be made. Here are the things that we filter out:
Duplicate clicks from the same computer (based on cookies or IP addresses).
Spiders. Any known spider or any visitor that requests the robots.txt file is not tracked or counted. In August, 2002 we
implemented additional protections against spiders which are not following the robot exclusion recommendation - cutting
out about 3 spiders per day running in stealth mode.
Other ISP owners - if an ISP owner is logged in and "browsing", their clicks will appear in the logs,
but not be counted as a chargeable click
Sales People - or more generally people who are clicking through to a lot of ISPs - we already have
mechanisms in place to limit this type of activity, but after clickthroughs to three different ISPs in a session
, we stop charging (but we keep logging). This is something no other click-based directory can offer you.
Note that if the user isn't blocking cookies, and they don't clear the cookies, we consider any subsequent visit by that same computer
to be a continuation of the same session. You aren't charged a second time even if it is weeks later and using
a different IP address.
|
| Q: |
Who are you and why should we trust you? |
| A: |
A brief history - this directory was inspired by our search
for an ISP when we decided to leave AOL in 1995. "The List" (operated back them by Meckler Media) was the largest
and best known ISP directory. The List was (and still is) organized by Area Code and then within area code alphabetically
lists the names of each ISP. Since an ISP's POPs frequently are not in a city that is a local call,
it is an enormous waste of time and a very frustrating experience.
Based on that experience, we set out to build a better directory in our spare time - partly to see if it could be done, and partly
to be prepared when / if AOL collapsed after going flat rate - to give people useful information, including ratings. Initially,
the web site was run from personal web space on Concentric (R.I.P.), our first ISP after leaving AOL.
In 1998, the FindAnISP.com name was obtained from InterNIC, and the web site was moved to virtual web hosting space, since it
was starting to develop more traffic than was reasonable for personal web hosting space. In 2000, Orange County
Online offered to host the service on a dedicated server for free with no strings. We accepted the offer, and
having the dedicated server opened up the possibility of using mySQL, php and all of the wonderful tools that make
this type of web site possible. With better tools and not limited by bandwidth constraints, the site continued to grow and
improve.
At the beginning of 2001, this "hobby" was getting out of control. The demands on time to maintain the directory
were becoming a serious problem with my "real" job managing the software design group for a major software project at a well-known
financial services organization. One or the other had to go.
FindAnISP.com was changed from a hobby to a for-profit business, to see if it could generate enough
income to make quitting the "real" job a rational choice. It did. The web site was moved to a "neutral" web
hosting facility that we pay for to remove any appearance of a conflict of interest. Don't bother offering to
give us free web hosting :) We resigned our "real" job in November 2001 and stayed on part-time through January 2002 until
the design work had been completed on the current project.
The Internet Archive's database has done an excellent job of capturing the evolution of the web site,
including all of our mistakes.... you can see it here. They've
done an excellent job of linking everything together, so you can take a trip down memory lane and see the era of the
"free" ISPs and the other ISPs absorbed into Earthlink years ago.
|
|
| Q: |
How do I get started as a Click based Sponsor? |
| A: |
- If your ISP is not already in the directory, click here to submit the ISP information
- Click on the My Account Tab and register as a user (you'll be sent a random password). Logon.
- Once the ISP is in the directory, visit the ISP page, by either doing a Search by ISP Name, or
searching in a city where you have an access point in the database. At the bottom of the page is a button
labeled "ISP Staff Login". Click on that link to review your information. Make a note
of the ISPID for the ISP, since all payment tracking, clickthrough tracking and access control is based on that ISPID.
- If you are not yet a contact person for the ISP, you are presented with a request to become the authorized
contact person. You should receive a confirmation of your authorization after we determine that you
are a valid contact person. After you're authorized, the referral tracking and billing data are visible.
- Once you're satisfied that you understand the tracking and are ready to fund the account, either
submit a payment through qChex or PayPal using the buttons on the
account history and balance page, or send us a check. Be sure to include the ISPID # on the check to assure
prompt credit to your account. For a new account, the minimum deposit is $50.00. All prices are in US dollars.
- While you're waiting for the account to become activated, use the Submit Updates form to submit
ad copy and make any necessary corrections to the information in the entry.
|
| Q: |
What about logos and banners? |
| A: |
As of March, 2003, we've dropped the 468x60 banner ads, as they no longer produce signifcant results
and add significantly to page load times. Please remember that you are paying for clickthroughs
based on your ISP information, not a CPM or flat advertising rate to buy real estate.
We want the appearance of the directory to be quiet and consumer oriented, not 37 graphics blinking at
the visitor to try to catch their eye.
The rules for the logo that appears underneath the ISP name in the city pages:
- The logo should be 100 pixels wide - our HTML code will resize the logo to 100, so for the
most effective presentation, you should consider making the logo 100 pixels wide. The logo should be no more
than 100 pixels tall - to keep the directory looking neat, we prefer that the logo be no more than 60 pixels high.
- The logo MUST be 2500 bytes or smaller
- The logo MUST NOT be animated
- The logo MUST NOT contain pricing or marketing information - the only words permitted are the name of the ISP
FindAnISP.com retains all editorial control and responsibility for this directory. We may choose to decline to accept materials for reasons
other than those listed above. In the event that we reach an impasse over submitted material, a prompt
refund of any unused paid clickthroughs is your sole remedy.
|
| Q: |
How do I get in touch with someone to discuss this? |
| A: |
| Voice Phone: |
(408) 592-4188 (Cell) |
| FAX: |
Ask |
| Email: |
fred203 (at) findanisp.com |
| Mailing Address: |
FindAnISP.com
c/o Fred Stiening
34 East Court
Derby, CT 06418 |
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