Flight school listing site - legit?

[skyflyer8]

For the second time my flight school has received an e-mail from a flight school listing web site, saying we should join their site and they refer lots of pilots bla bla bla.

(*I don't even want to list the address here because I know Google crawls POA and don't want to give the site any free promotion, especially if it's a bad site!)

This time around the e-mail was pretty crafty, giving us a username and password even though we never registered or created a listing:

Hello,

Over the past three weeks, I referred 181 students to schools
throughout the US and Canada.

Unfortunately, your school was not among the referrals, because your
listing in my directory is incomplete, and I didn't know enough about
your school to recommend you.

I talk to students on the phone as well as through email, so the
referrals I make are serious students.
There is no charge of any kind to use my service.
Won't you please take a moment to update and complete your
profile. This link will take you directly to the edit mode of your listing: (etc. etc.)

Just to see what we might be missing, I visited the site and searched for Wisconsin flight schools to see who might be on there. I was surprised to see a huge list of schools and thought whoa, we're behind the times! But then I noticed that the listings are merely text pulled off the schools' web sites, including ours.

In reading the fine print for this site I noticed it uses some kind of crazy matchmaking system similar to online personal ads. Also I noticed there are no fees now, but the site says there may be fees in the future.

This site strikes me as something fishy especially since it is trying to reinvent the wheel. Has anyone on this board heard of or USED this site? What should I tell my boss who is asking about us listing ourselves there?

 

[alaskaflyer]

I don't see anything particularly insidious or evil-looking, if they are trying to reinvent the wheel it is because they hope to make revenue off of advertising like every other commercial website out there. After all, reinventing the wheel ad nauseum is what the WWW is all about Look at all the additional flight planning and aviation weather sites that have propagated in the last couple of years...

When I was searching for flight schools a few years ago I used several sites like these, some were more useful than others.

From their website:

Pilot Flight Instruction was created by a talented group of software developers in San Diego, California who have spent the past 15 years creating online conferencing systems, corporate web sites and eBusiness systems. Several of the development team members are pilots who were dissatisfied with other directories lack of complete information about CFIs and schools. Pilot Flight Instruction was created with the intention of making the easiest-to-use online directory of Flight Schools and CFIs on the Internet. It is an easy way for a student pilot to find a great instructor based on location, experience and specialization. We'd love to hear your feedback about whether you think we're accomplishing that goal. If you have any suggestions that could make Pilot Flight Instruction easier to use or more useful, please let us know.

 

[skyflyer8]

Look at all the additional flight planning and aviation weather sites that have propagated in the last couple of years...

Hmm yes true. Thanks for the insight. If anything I guess maybe this site is just very brand-new hence the listings pulled from people's web sites.

 

[jason]

What I don't understand is...if you're listed...why are they contacting you about becoming listed? It seems you're in their listings, so why can't they refer people to you?

I'm with you. Something doesn't fit.

 

[AdamZ]

Kate not a web guru here but I would have never thought of going to a flight school listing site to find PP training. I'd venture to say most find thier school via friends that are pilots or just go to the local airport. I guess if your actively seeking foreign students it might be a different story. My guess is for the same money your school may be able to optimize its own web site and accomplish better results.

 

[mikea]

There all kinds of directories that want to list various businesses.

Want they want are 1) traffic, 2) links pointing to them to attract Google, and 3) ad revenue from the hits.

and then 4) now or some point in the future you'll get the offer to "subscribe" with real money to get a featured listing or more features. That's what airnav did.

I doubt that such subscription is worthwhile. To be worthwhile you need the eyeballs. To get the eyeballs you need useful content. A "new wonderful site" by definition doesn't have the eyeballs.


You don't need to respond. They aren't going anywhere.

 

[KennyFlys]

I Googled simply, "flight training." It took the third page before anything came up that was not already a school with the exception of two links from AOPA and another from Pilot Finance. Two of the "preferred" links on the right were URLs that had nothing to do with aviation and simply listed a half dozen flight schools on each.

When I added Georgia as a state to the search, among all the schools a site came up listing schools but with no contact information or URLs other than a mailing address. However, a certain, well-known ticket mill had a link and logo on the page.

So, it seems to me the most prudent means to simply look for a flight school in the country is use Google.

 

[skyflyer8]

Good points, all.

We just got another e-mail, this time from the "My Aviation School" web site! Same type of thing.