CAT system – Category activated technology

Way back in 2002, one of our members of staff had the unfortunate experience of working for a so called internet marketing firm based in Burnley with the name along the lines of Matrix Internet Solutions. This company was selling a product named Category Activated Technology, or the CAT system for short. At the time, they were offering a bonefide product. Unfortunately, it was grossly mis-sold. They ended up going into liquidation, or rather opting for voluntary bankruptcy, and left a great number of U.K. small to medium enterprises out of pocket. Since that time, there have been a number of companies offering this service, all from around the Burnley, Nelson Colne area in Lancashire. Not all marketing companies from that area are scamming like this, but I'm afraid to say some still are. This is how the sales pitch goes. Do not fall for it.

CAT system

Would you be interested in 10,000 unique visitors through to your site within a thirty day period?

We do this through our American and overseas partners in your business sector. They rank well in Google, Yahoo and MSN. They do not want, or cannot conduct business with UK residents, so rather than waste the site visitor, we track the I.P. Address of the site visitor, and when it is flagged up as a U.K. I.P. Address, they will be re-directed through to you. So would you like to receive 10,000 category specific site visitors in thirty days for £500.00?

In theory this sounds too good to be true, and, as always the case, it is.

Firstly, search engines do not like, nor do they tend to rank well sites that use re-directs on URL's.

Second. If your site ranks well enough in search engines, do you get anywhere near 10,000 unique visitors? If you check the Yahoo search marketing tool (formerly Overture), chances are, there is no where near that amount of searches made for the keywords they say activate the re-direct.

Third. Why would an American site rank highly on U.K. Search engines, when English based search engines are already overcrowded?

Some of these companies do not even set up anything at all. They have a fake stats page set up, so in effect you are getting nothing at all.

If they do set something up, then it is predominantly done with pop ups, or pop unders, which cost around twenty six U.S. Dollars to set up, to receive 10,000. So, you might say, well a possible 10,000 people seeing my site might yield some form of sale generation. Ask yourself this, do you have Google Toolbar, Yahoo Toolbar, MSN Toolbar, or for that matter, any Toolbar or spyware software installed? Is possible that over 95% of British computers do, and all these little add ons come with a pop up blocker. Further to this, if a pop up, or pop under does manage to get through, you will notice that it is not just one that opens, it is several, sometimes in excess of 20 pop ups or unders that open. What are they odds of someone targeting in on your window, and then buying something from you?

The CAT system, or category activated technology. DON'T BUY IT - IT IS JUST A CON.