Would you sell or buy this and how? v.Automated keyword research

fatmoocow

fatmoocow

Señor Member
Feb 1, 2009
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So I've pasted together and rigged up a bunch of stuff in php largely with the help of the folks here. It basically does your keyword research from start to finish with no input from the user and dumps out the following.


  • keywords
  • CPC
  • local and global search volume
  • number of search results
  • links to top 8 competitors via google, with corresponding page rank
  • exact match domains if they are available
It would also be trivial to pull back links and some other stuff for competitors although it would be slow. The scripts seed themselves with a source of actual product/sales and expands them out with the usual google keyword tools. This runs nicely in clean php.

My main concern is having it lose it's value if 11ty billion retards are all scraping from the same source, both from having identical results and from raping the shit out of the same web services, most likely using similar proxy lists.

My second concern is the competence required by the end user just to keep it alive. So you'll need a decatcher account, api key for the whois checker (who may not like the hits/purchases ratio), server capable of curling through proxies (no shared hosting), an ever expanding proxy list, understanding of how to setup cron jobs, etc.

Any thoughts on how best to do this? My initial idea was keep it limited to <50 people who I would screen. Perhaps split up some of the functions so that I could run/control seeding of keywords and prevent duplication across each user. This is a relatively low volume task and would let me set it up as a subscription service rather than a one time purchase.

How much would this be worth? I'm pulling 10k keywords a day running part time. Evaluating competitors needs to be way faster, but you're probably looking at one low volume exact match per day, with a bunch of low competition medium volume keywords without exact match. I don't have a good feel for how much I can really run with the script because I don't have things optimized with multi_curl or a decent server running 24/7. Not sure when the throttling will kick in either.

Any ideas? I would only do it if it would allow me to stop doing anything else and just build tools. I also don't want to be dependent on something that could just die tomorrow from too much volume because a service shuts down. Would you just keep it to yourself and keep cranking out sites?
 


I would buy it.

I wouldn't be too concerned with having the script lose its' value, primarily because of the technical abilities required to install and use the script. I'm not sure the amount of people here who have a dedicated server, and are proficient in php, have access to stable proxies, know how to setup a cron job, have a decaptcher account, etc. Combine that with you wanting to limit the sale of your script to less than 50 people, I really don't see the issue here with the script losing value

As for price - if the script was truly a matter of just setting it up and letting it pull its' data, with no further interaction needed from the user - so that it was a 'set it and forget it', I would imagine a good price would be in the $100-250 range.

Now personally, if I had developed the script, I would not sell it. I'm a marketer first, and I wouldn't like to deal with the customer support required for the people who will inevitably purchase your script who don't know what decaptcher is, don't have stable private proxies, don't know how to setup cron, don't have a dedicated server, etc. You have the script working perfectly for you on your box, but each server will be different, with a different setup/config, and problems always arise with software installations.

Just something to think about.
 
puravida said:
I would buy it.

I wouldn't be too concerned with having the script lose its' value, primarily because of the technical abilities required to install and use the script. I'm not sure the amount of people here who have a dedicated server, and are proficient in php, have access to stable proxies, know how to setup a cron job, have a decaptcher account, etc. Combine that with you wanting to limit the sale of your script to less than 50 people, I really don't see the issue here with the script losing value

As for price - if the script was truly a matter of just setting it up and letting it pull its' data, with no further interaction needed from the user - so that it was a 'set it and forget it', I would imagine a good price would be in the $100-250 range.

Now personally, if I had developed the script, I would not sell it. I'm a marketer first, and I wouldn't like to deal with the customer support required for the people who will inevitably purchase your script who don't know what decaptcher is, don't have stable private proxies, don't know how to setup cron, don't have a dedicated server, etc. You have the script working perfectly for you on your box, but each server will be different, with a different setup/config, and problems always arise with software installations.

Just something to think about.
Click to expand...

Customer service is also a big concern. I'd have to just do development and CS. Main advantage is I could be pulling in a decent chunk of cash soon vs. continuing to build sites that won't make money for a few months.

It is very much set and forget excluding feeding fresh proxies, even this could be done with some work. All you do plug in what you want to see. So exact match domains, with CPC > $1.20, Local volume > 3000, competitor PR < 3, etc. and it gives you a list.
 
Maybe an easier way for you to do this is to set up a subscription based service where you mail out a report every day with what you've dug up.

No real support issues there.

Hell, you could just do a paypal button that feeds into aweber or something and manually remove people if they cancel.

Or set it up so it displays todays data in a members area and charge a fee to see old data.

Or just show todays data.

Or show different data sets to different members.

I'd pay 10 or 20 bucks a month to be able to log in and just have a 'niche" handed to me every day. Especially if you weren't giving the same data to all members.
 
You're right the customer service part of this would suck as would patching fixes constantly when things change.



Much more valuable and easier to suport by getting your own operation scaled as much as possible and like stmadeveloper said, mail people who pay your "findings". I'd pay to be part of a group that got a "today's data" mailing provided there was enough data to make it worthwhile to the number of members you have.

edit: at the same time, if the technical curve is actually high, you might not need to do as much support because the only people who can use it are the people who aren't retarded to begin with. puravida pretty much nailed why i dont sell the tools i develop.
 
Isnt it kind of like micro niche finder? I dont know that product in and out, but it sounds very similar. Could be wrong.
 
totesmagotes said:
Isnt it kind of like micro niche finder? I dont know that product in and out, but it sounds very similar. Could be wrong.
Click to expand...

This works similarly to most of the tools out there. The main difference is that you don't need to plug in a niche and do searches. It populates itself and just runs non-stop via cron. This allows you to filter a massive list and gives you products you wouldn't have come up with manually. So no matter how many ways you dump "make money online" into a keyword tool you'll never come up with something like "pond pumps."

The other thing is that it uses the google keyword tool for generating variations rather than the suggest feature. So when it seeds a keyword like dog food, you get results like "cat food" and "organic dog treats" rather than "dog food news" and "dog food newsletter." Because most of the popular automated tools are using the suggest feature this gives you a set of keywords that are slightly less likely to be beat to death.

Sounds like the verdict is massively scale on my own servers and just sell results? I think the limitation will be whois volume. One option is give away the whois checker so I can spread out the volume. The other could be setup an affiliate deal with the registrar so that they'll see that their whois traffic is generating income for them, with maybe a commission for me.

So what which would you prefer? A unique but smaller list that you can control to some degree (min/max search volume, CPC, etc.) or a 50x larger list that everyone else is looking at all at the same time. Is it still worth while without exact match domain testing?
 
fatmoocow said:
a 50x larger list that everyone else is looking at all at the same time. Is it still worth while without exact match domain testing?
Click to expand...

with a big enough list and exact match domain testing you have something very valuable. That way if its on the list, the only way you arent getting it is if someone else paying for this beat you to it, which is fine, especially if the list is big enough.

I'd say do whatever you can to get the whois problem solved. Sure I can run my own lookups but my tools already do everything up to this point (as I think many people's do).
 
Ya 1 month/report free is probably easiest way to do it. Hmm...sounds like I need to drop it on a real server and see how hard I can push before burning through proxies. Thanks for all the input.
 
Don't restrict how long your engagement with them will be (1 report, 1 month). Give them a tiny bit of relevant data constantly, with reminders and incentives to upgrade to get more of the same data.

As long as they stay on your list, reward them. And sell to them.
 
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