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on Aug 16 2012 19 comments13 DISCUSSING
Stupid... that was the only reason I was using Blekko... (I know, it's not a thoughtful comment... but, they must decide: being a search engine or a SAAS?)
We're in 100% agreement... the ONLY time I used blekko was for quick external duplicate content checks. And here's the thing: it was decent (but not great) as a FREE tool... but $99/month is Fantasyland!
To be fair, I think most of us who watched Blekko from the start figured this would be coming once the investment dollars started to run low. It's the only sensible thing to do with the business, as building a search engine competitor is ludicrously challenging.
I'm all for them trying to make money, and this is obviously not the first time a search engine has killed a free ride (BOSS V2 is another relatively recent example - but at least that pricing model didn't make my jaw drop). Two questions immediately came to mind when I saw this news: 1) Why aren't they at least offering a freemium model or a trial membership option (as opposed to the all-or-nothing approach they took)? 2) How did they come up with this $99/month pricing model?! (This echoes what Chris says below.) I liked their tools when they were free, but unless they released a huge bag of awesome behind that pay wall, I can't imagine I'll be using blekko any time soon.
I contacted Blekko to ask what free data they would provide and they replied to say all their SEO data will be behind a paywall. There will be no free version. http://sunburntseo.com/blekko-paywall-their-seo-secrets That's going to make it harder to compete with the established players.
Annnnd thus ends my use for blekko.
Not a good move.
Great move - looking forward to powerful paid tools from Blekko...
Also, if they are going to charge, then at the very least they need to make a better shopping cart. 1993 flashback up in here.
$99 a year seems very poor value for money for me. Yes I agree they need to raise $$ but I think the pricing is way off especially when you look at the value you get from other SEO tools in the marketplace. If the quality of the product improved then I would consider it but as it is I have no need for this.
Apologies $99 /month d'oh!!!
Guys, if you're using their tools and data to support your business, $99/month is a steal. It's unreasonable to think that they owe anyone that data for free
This is exactly why a freemium model would make more sense. There's a massive difference between the number of SEO queries submitted by an average webmaster and a company that is built on top of blekko's services. However, under the current model, both use cases require $99/month.
Freemium models have a lot of their own issues as well, if anything they should use a free trial. I wrote about this here: http://www.layeredthoughts.com/startups/the-psychological-difference-between-freemium-free-trial-plans
No more transparency over at Blekko. This was one of the main reasons to recommend Blekko. Now they are worse than Google.
"No more transparency over at Blekko" "worse than google"? <-- You consistently post the most ridiculous things here. Why is charging money for data that they incur costs collecting a bad thing? Why is charging for access to their data non-transparent? If it costs them money to collect and serve up the data to people, then it's completely reasonable to charge for access. That has nothing to do with transparency at all, and it is in no way a devious move on their part.
You have Google Webmaster Tools on Google. On Blekko you have no insight left. That's why Blekko is worse now. Also you do not seem to know what transparency is pal. If you do not understand most basic principles do not shout like crazy.
God bless 'em. Bye Blekko.
Nothing wrong with offering a paid service but they could have done so with some communication about the decision and how they planned to create value on top of what they offered for free. I just can't imagine that they would expect anyone to pay for what they wanted to be readily accessible to everyone. Nothing about new features, not even a blog post about it, and they appear to care less about any existing users / contributors of Blekko. They also had a free trial on that page see my post below or Googles cache. http://thedealerblog.com/blekko-betrays-trust-blocks-seo-data-and-shreds-transparency-policy/