<p>Neil Moncrief has thousands of pairs of enormous shoes and he hopes he can find enough big feet to fill them all.</p><p>He has shipped a pair of size 17 combat boots to an airman in Afghanistan, a pair of size 15 work boots to an Iraqi working for an American contractor in Iraq, and a pair of size 18 shoes to an 8-tall Miami man who bills himself as the tallest man in the world.</p><p>Hes really got a relatively small foot for a man that tall, Moncrief added.</p><p>His 4-year-old e-commerce site _ www.2bigfeet.com _ prospered and was attracting a global clientele until the worlds most popular search engine, Google, apparently changed its search algorithm in November.</p><p>Sales dropped off dramatically and remained that way through the holidays, Moncrief said.</p><p>We used to come up near the top of the rankings when you typed in mens large-size shoes, he said. Now we come in about 50th.</p><p>The quality of the results, of course, are influenced by the search terms used.</p><p>His site comes up first in a search for big feet, but its followed by foot-fetish sites that involve trampling and a site that offers tips for snowboarding with big feet.</p><p>It was second in the listings for large-sized shoes.</p><p>A search for big shoes featured a couple of online merchants _ but not Moncriefs site _ followed by sports stories on teams with big shoes to fill.</p><p>Its not that Moncrief and his partner, Brandon Eley, are too cheap to pay for advertising. But since they serve the only 2 to 3 percent of the population who cant find footwear in regular stores, they dont know where to advertise.</p><p>If everyone with big feet was a Christian, I could advertise in Christian publications, Moncrief said, as he prepared to ship a pair of size 20, 4E sneakers to London. If everybody with big feet was a Democrat, I could advertise in publications for Democrats. But people with big feet dont fit neatly into any one category.</p><p>Moncrief knows how hard it is for people with big feet to purchase comfortable shoes since he himself has wears size 14 or 15, depending on the shoe.</p><p>He stocks size 14 to 20 for men in widths ranging from D (medium) to 6E for extremely wide feet. For women, he stocks size 12 to 15, in medium and wide widths.</p><p>Ive got customers who havent been in a store for years because they know they cant find anything that fits, he said. Ive had guys tell me they would have had to get married in tennis shoes, go to the prom in tennis shoes and go to job interviews in tennis shoes, if they had not found my site. I hear the relief in their voices.</p><p>Danny Sullivan, editor for Search Engine Watch, an English site devoted to search engine quirks and changes, said Moncriefs experience shows that online businesses cannot rely solely on search results.</p><p>Google made a big change to the search the algorithm that determines what was relevant, he said. That caught a lot of sites.</p><p>With the change, there were losers who fell back in the listings and winners who moved up, Sullivan said.</p><p>It had large repercussions for many people, he said.</p><p>Google declined to comment on its changes, despite repeated e-mails and phone calls.</p><p>Gregg Notes, editor of Search Engine Showdown in Bozeman, Mont., said Googles changes caused an outcry from the e-commerce community.</p><p>E-commerce should not rely on one source of traffic, he said. This type of thing can have a big impact.</p><p>Hes right, if youre selling something like books, Moncrief said. Any traditional advertising medium would work. But when youre selling something as specific as what were selling, then search engines are really the only method that works well.</p><p>Moncrief said the change has forced him and his partner to rethink their business strategy.</p><p>A year ago, they rented a billboard along busy Interstate 75 to attract customers. Thats been fairly successful. Now they talking with online competitors about forming partnerships to erect more billboards and share Web links.</p><p>Google sells sponsored links which appear on the right side of each Web page, but Moncrief believes prospective customers should be able to rely on the accuracy of a search engine, rather than paid advertising.</p><p>A lot of people who are using Google shy away from the paid ads, he said. They have more confidence in the unbiased search results than paid listings.</p><p>Moncrief, who stocks about 4,000 pairs of mens sneakers, boots, work shoes, loafers and womens casuals, said hes moved by some of the responses of customers. A couple of moms have cried. One was relieved to have finally found size 15 shoes for her 13-year-old daughter. Another, who gave a pair of size 17 work shoes to her son, discovered that he had been curling his toes for years to fit into shoes two sizes smaller.</p><p>Its traumatic when people cannot find shoes that fit, or when they cant find shoes for their children, he said. They always say how grateful they are that they found us. The challenge now is getting more customers to our site, without relying on the search engine.</p><p>___</p><p>On the Net:</p><p>2bigfeet: www.2bigfeet.com</p><p>Google: www.google.com</p><p>HASH(0x2862b34)</p><p>HASH(0x2862bdc)</p>
