An advertising web site caught us out

[charles cawley]

We were recently had a bad experience with a very well known UK advertising service. Having submitted details for a free listing, we are delighted to see several visits a day over a couple of weeks. The inevitable phone call came offering an upgrade to our free listing costing £200. As our free listing visits seemed so good, we went ahead.

The web site sales people had duped us. Closer examination of our web statistics showed that virtually all the visits had been return visits, each time looking at only one page. Has anyone else had a similar experience or found that some well known advertising services do not get hoped for results?

[kendalcottages]

I'm sure this kind of thing goes on quite a bit.

At the end of the day, I'm not really interested in the source of visitors to our website. I'm interest in the source of visitors who book.

Sorry to hear you were stung.

[apexblue]

So sorry to hear this. Are you able to let us KNOW which site?

[charles cawley]

I agree, results are everything.

We depend on advertising so getting it right is not optional. I am told this is widespread, what was a little shocking was that we were taken in by a major national UK advertising company which appeared to be acting in a rather sleazy manner.

Lawyers will silence us if we identify the sites. However my general advice is to be very suspicious of sudden 'results' from any free listing. The sites involved are both specific to the self catering sector and, it appears, two major general advertising sites could be infected by such practices.