Paid Search Engine Services

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Is the Free Ride Over?

The search engines, like all dotcoms, are looking for sustainable revenue models. These days almost every engine or directory, no matter now big or small, offers some sort of paid option for websites to gain a presence. In some cases, paid options are the only ones that exist. The reality is that these fees are now part of doing business online. Here are some of the ways in which the search engines are making a living these days:

Banner ads. All major search engines, like Yahoo! and AltaVista, carry banner ads that are linked with keywords. You can buy either graphical banners or text banners that appear on search-results screens when keywords that you purchase are entered for searches. These highly targeted ads often generate higher than average clickthrough rates.

Paid placement. Several major search engines sell listings outside the editorial space. These listings usually appear above editorial links, at the bottom of editorial content, or as sidebars to the left or right of a page. Ask Jeeves, Google and Netscape Search all offer paid placement ads.

Paid inclusion. Paying for inclusion will get you a listing within the editorial results, but unlike paid placement, it won't guarantee a particular position in the main search results. Being more deeply listed can increase your site's chances to appear more in response to a wide range of searches. It's like buying more tickets in the search engine lottery.

Most crawler based search engines (Inktomi, AltaVista, Lycos and others) are adopting this model. Inktomi penalizes sites not paying for inclusion and Teoma (which feeds Ask Jeeves) has no free option so these are two worth considering. For all the other paid inclusion programs however, unless you have new pages that absolutely must get listed right away or pages that must get refreshed on a frequent basis, it may not be worth it.

Paid submission. This is simply paying for faster review and possible inclusion. There is no guarantee that you'll get listed, but if you submit a relevant site, you can get listed as quickly as two days from submission, as opposed to several weeks or even months. LookSmart and Yahoo! are among the directories that offer paid submission services. The Yahoo! submission fee recently became a recurring annual fee for commercial site. On LookSmart you can also pay to add your site to another category or to change the description of your listing.

Pay per click. Some search engines - like Overture, FindWhat, and now Google - allow advertisers to pay only when there is a clickthrough to their site. Advertisers bid on positioning for different keywords (the higher you bid, the higher you place, and each time there is a clickthrough, the advertiser pays the price they've bid. What is also significant here is that these engines are now reselling their top results to other to other search engines. For instance, bidding on the top three positions on Overture will get you seen on almost every other major search engine.

The up side of all of this is that as directories and search engines begin to charge money for listings, relevancy increases and spam is weeded out. The downside is that the level playing field that the Internet was thought to be is quickly becoming another tool for advertisers - like television - where content will deliver target audiences to the most creative marketers with the deepest pockets.

Next month, however, we'll take a look at what you can still do for free to promote yourself online.

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Net Worth of Paid Services
This chart looks at each of the paid services offered by the major search engines and details their cost, how much exposure you get and if we consider it a worthwhile investment.

Program	Cost*	Exposure	Is It Worth It?
AlltheWeb/FAST PartnerSite (paid inclusion)	Paid inclusion program expected to launch some time in March 2002.	Included pages will be spidered every 24 hours and included in Alltheweb (FAST) search results.	TBD once program officially launches
AltaVista Express Inclusion (paid inclusion)	$39 for the first URL $29 each for URLs 2-10 $19 each for URLs 11-500   *enhance listings with logos, links, etc for an additional cost	For six months all included pages will be spidered once a week and included in AltaVista search results.	Not really worth it as this is THE most expensive paid inclusion program. Purchasing top listings on Overture may get you on just as fast and guarantee that your site appears for terms relevant to your site. And there is still a free option to submit to this engine that is not penalized.
AltaVista Featured Sites (paid placement)	Approximately $35 CPM, $2,000 minimum spend, 6-12 month contracts preferred.	Have your search listing appear at top of the results for targeted keywords on AltaVista	Generate higher clickthrough rates than banner ads, but still involve significant cost. Recommend negotiating a test to see which keywords may be worth the expense.
AskJeeves/Teoma Site Submit (paid inclusion)	$30 for the first URL $18 for each  additional URL   *there is no free submit option any longer	While in beta testing get 15 months instead of 12 months - all included pages will be spidered weekly and included in the Ask Jeeves and Teoma search results. (Teoma will soon replace DirectHit)	Teoma has no free add URL function. You have to rely on the crawler finding you through links on other sites. However, if you want to get on this engine quickly or ensure certain pages are included this is the way to go.
Google Premium Sponsorships (paid placement)	$10,000 minimum over three months.	Enhanced text link appears at the top of the Google result page whenever the keyword or phrase you have purchased is searched for.	With the right text creative, these campaigns generate much higher clickthrough rates than traditional banner ads. However, the significant minimum cost means it is only an option for advertisers with deeper pockets.
Google AdWords (paid placement)	$15, $12, $10 (per thousand ads shown or CPM) for positions 1, 2, and 3 respectively  - no minimum required	Results appear to the right of Google search results in either position 1,2 or 3.	These ads do not have the prime real estate of the premium sponsorships and clickthroughs are not nearly as good. Wouldn’t recommend this.
Google AdWords Select (paid placement & pay-per-click)	New variation on the AdWords program that uses a pay-per-click model instead. Minimums have been set based on how well keywords sold in the original AdWords program.	Same as above.	Think this will deliver a better return on investment since you only pay for clicks.
Inktomi Sure List (paid inclusion)	$39 for the first URL $25 for each additional URL	For one year all included pages will be spidered every 48 hours and included in search results on AOL, MSN, HotBot, and others.	Worth it if you you’re your site/ pages included right away or Inktomi has not found it while crawling the web. Pages submitted using the free add URL function are actually given a ranking penalty.
LookSmart Express Submit (paid submission)	$299 one-time fee (reviewed within 2 business days) OR $149 one-time standard fee (reviewed within 8 weeks)	No free submit option for commercial sites, so this is the only way to get included in LookSmart partner network which includes MSN, AltaVista, and others.	For commercial sites a must as there is no free way to get included. Because LookSmart listings are so prominent on MSN it is definitely worth the investment. If time isn’t of the essence, take the cheaper option.
LookSmart Site Promote (paid placement)	$19.95 per month (without keywords, just uses the words in your title and description); $29.95 per month (if choose to pick 10 additional keywords to target)	"Featured Listings" are sold by LookSmart to various partners like TimeWarner and Ask Jeeves. Also, paid inclusion listings given ranking boost.	Don’t get much additional exposure on the top search engines. Worth would depend upon keywords targeted. As you can pay month by month, however, well worth testing.
LookSmart LookListings (paid inclusion)	$2,500 minimum monthly requirement, pay-for-performance	Allows for listing of pages deeper in your site – included in search results on LookSmart, MSN, AltaVista, and others	Only a viable option for those companies with deeper pockets and lots of products to sell.
Lycos Insite Select (paid inclusion)	$18 for the first URL $12 for each  additional URL   (this is a limited time introductory offer only)	For one year all included pages will be spidered every 48 hours and included in search results on Lycos and AlltheWeb.	This is a new program so it is hard to test its worth. Because Lycos still has a free submit page, unless you need to get indexed right away or have pages the crawler has missed, I’d give it a pass right now.
Overture (paid placement, pay-per-click)	$20 per month minimum and $0.05 is the lowest bid. Otherwise cost is completely dependent up on bidding for targeted keywords.	Overture now feeds its top three results to most of the major search engines. These premium positions will get seen on AltaVista, AOL, HotBot, Lycos, MSN, Netscape, Yahoo!, and others.	Because of its wide distribution, it’s worthwhile for most businesses to consider this option of all the pay-per-click search engines. They do offer professional setup of the account, but we have found that their editors often pick keywords that are too general and do not seem to have the skills in direct response writing that is so necessary for strong titles and descriptions. Another thing to note is Overture also has UK and German versions which are very worthwhile for those companies targetting the European market.
Yahoo! Express Submission (paid submission)	$299 non-refundable, annual recurring fee	If accepted, you’re in Yahoo!, still one of the top traffic drivers on the Net.	It’s Yahoo!, it’s worth it. But make sure you are VERY careful with your submission. It is almost impossible to get changes made to Yahoo listings once accepted. It may even be worthwhile seeking out some professional advice before you attempt this one.
Yahoo Sponsored Sites (paid placement)	$25-$300 per month	Commercial sites can pay for top listings in their categories.	If you have a lot of other sites in your category this may help to break you out ahead of the crowd. You can pay for this month to month so it is worthwhile for a test.

*all prices quoted in USD

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eMage Site of the Month

SearchEngineWatch: Paid Listings
This is an invaluable collection of over 40 articles that provide information about paid inclusion, paid placement, paid submission and search engine optimization from search engine guru, Danny Sullivan.

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eMage Tip of the Month

There is no guaranteed ranking with paid inclusion. To get the most out of these programs, your targeted pages must be fully optimized for the search engines. Otherwise you're just wasting your money because no one will find them. Here are some basic SEO (search engine optimization) tips:

Identify the keywords you want to target with your page by brainstorming and using something like the Overture search suggestion tool to ensure that people are actually searching for your terms.

Make sure you include your keywords in important places in your programming like your title and meta tags (check out the past eMage by eMail article "Meta Tags Revealed").

Ensure the content on your page is reflective of your keywords and is also of use and relevance to the human beings who will be searching for this information.

Most of the major paid inclusion programs also offer some kind of online monitoring of your pages. You should check on a regular basis to ensure your optimization has resulted in clicks. If it hasn't, make some adjustments and wait for the pages to be visited again. Like all online marketing initiatives, these should be watched on a regular basis to ensure you are getting the best ROI possible.

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