Quo Vadis, Yahoo!Indextools?
It´s been a few weeks now since Yahoo! has taken over Indextools, and the reactions in press and blogosphere were almost everywhere the same:
Ahh, that´s great. Congrats! WHERE CAN I GET MY FREE ACCOUNT?
Well, i don´t think this will be THAT easy. Everybody in Analytics Business thinks that Indextools will be “FREE”. Once again: It´s not THAT easy. Right, If you already have an Indextools Account -Basic or Enterprise, doesn´t matter at all- you will no longer get charged for it. It´s free, thats right. Even Bid Managment and all of that stuff: Free. But not: Free for all.
But here we go: Do you know where you can get a new account? Well i do. At least for Germany. Indextools has about 3 so-called “Strategic Alliance Partners” in Germany. New Yahoo!Indextools accounts will by managed by them, and ONLY by them. And do you really think any of these agencys is willing to handle thousands of “iwantanfreeaccountformyblog”-issues?
Nah, they will not. Those angencys will only handle big customers and these customers will have to pay service charges. Did i mention that there will be no more service by Y!Indextools? Service will be handled by existing “Strategic Alliance Partners”. And there will not be any new Partners, just in case you wanted to ask over this next.
Now, time for the “why”-question: So why did Y! actually buy Indextools, if they don´t want to do another and better Google Analytics?
I think it´s kinda easy. Y! needed a good and state-of-the-art Analytics software for their big advertising customers and companys. Yahoo! doesnt want to do an new Google Analytics, and Y! also doesn´t want to change anything big with existing customers and partners at all. I kinda looks like Y! isn´t even interested in whats going on with existing customers. They bought their tool, they are about to implement it and if there ever will be any kind of product for anybody is something noone is talking about. If there will be a Rubix; if there will be following on-demand-releases – nobody knows.
All i know is: At this moment – try to get an free account.. good luck to you. Maybe i´m wrong, but somehow i think that there´ll be NO free Yahoondextools in near future.