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Updated February 27, 2002
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Promotion Tip:
Does Paid Inclusion Pay Off?
by Larisa Thomason,
Senior Web Analyst,
NetMechanic, Inc.
Yahoo made news last year when it began requiring commercial Web sites to use its paid submission option that costs between $199 and $600 per site - and the basic submit price recently soared to $299! LookSmart soon followed with its own paid submission program. Now, as search engine companies scramble for ways to increase revenues, they're offering a similar service. For a fee, they guarantee quick listing and regular updates. Is paid inclusion a good deal? Maybe, maybe not.
Defining The Terms
First, let's define some terms. The various options have similar names so it can get confusing:
- Paid Submission: Sites pay a certain amount to have a directory editor look at their pages and evaluate them within a certain time period. Since the backlog at some directories is 4-5 months or more, this can be a good deal. However, the directory doesn't guarantee that your site will get listed - only evaluated. More information on paid submission.
- Paid Placement: Used first by GoTo (now called Overture). Sites can purchase either a top rank or prominent listing for particular search terms. The listing may or may not be identified as a paid advertisement. Some search engines and directories charge a flat fee while GoTo/Overture uses a pay per click system.
- Paid Inclusion: Search engines guarantee to list pages from your Web site in their database and re-spider them on a regular basis, usually at least once per week. Unlike paid placement, you aren't guaranteed a particular place in the search rankings.
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Both paid submission and paid placement have become commonplace, but the trend towards paid inclusion at search engines is new - and pretty controversial among webmasters.
Who's Offering Paid Inclusion?
Some of the largest search engines:
| Search Engine |
Description |
Cost |
| Inktomi |
Refreshes listing every 48 hours. Allows webmasters to select which pages they want indexed. Service sold through various partner resellers. |
1st URL: $39
Additional URL's cost $25/ea. |
| AltaVista |
Pages added/revisited on at least a weekly basis.
Subscription period is 6 months. Prices here are the annual cost. |
1st URL: $78
URLs 2-10: $58/each
>10 URLs: $38 each |
FAST
Lycos
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Guaranteed inclusion within 48 hours. Refreshes site every 48 hours. |
$18 annual membership fee
$12 annual cost per URL |
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Teoma / AskJeeves
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Pages listed in 7 days and refreshed every 7 days.
Subscription period is 15 months. |
$30 for 1st URL
URLs 2-1000: $18 each |
Note that "per URL" refers to the individual pages you want indexed: yoursitename.com/index.htm is one URL, yoursitename.com/aboutus.htm is another, etc.
Risks And Benefits
The biggest risk with paid inclusion is that you could pay a lot for guaranteed listings, but not achieve high rankings. Since the majority of searchers never look beyond the first 40 search results, you could be wasting your money. More information on improving your search engine ranking.
The cost is another important consideration for sites with limited financial resources. Take AltaVista. Suppose you need 25 pages indexed quickly and/or reindexed regularly because your products change often. AltaVista will charge you $78 for the first URL, $58 for pages 2-10, and $38 for the rest.
| 1 |
x |
$78 |
= |
$78.00 |
| 9 |
x |
$58 |
= |
$522.00 |
| 15 |
x |
$38 |
= |
$570.00 |
Your annual total for AltaVista would be $1170. Ouch! An Inktomi listing for those same pages will cost you another $639. You get 25 pages into those databases, but you don't know how they'll rank. And the listing fees are nonrefundable.
But if you have pages that must be indexed quickly or you update your product listing often, then the service is really valuable. Especially when you factor in the partnership agreements that are proliferating between search engine companies, portals, and directories. A quick listing in one engine can often get you in the search results for many others. More information on search engine and directory alliances.
Paid Inclusion Is Controversial
Much of the controversy over paid inclusion programs stems from several fears:
- Will all sites eventually have to pay to get listed?
- Will sites who use the free listing service have to wait even longer to get indexed?
- Will paid inclusion sites get a boost in the rankings, resulting in less relevant search results?
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Right now, search engines give an emphatic "No!" to all three questions. But if paid inclusion becomes a big moneymaker, the answer could change quickly.
Actually, right now the biggest danger is that sites with relevant content could be pushed farther and farther down in the results to make room for the paid listings - which may or may not be relevant to the actual search.
That's already happening at some search sites that offer paid placement. Just recently, we searched on "lemonade" at a popular portal site: the top search result was a link to an online office supply company. And no, they don't sell lemonade.
Since paid inclusion programs don't guarantee a high rank, work hard to increase your site's search engine appeal. Paid inclusion gets you a speedy listing, but you aren't guaranteed to be in the Top 10, Top 20, or even Top 100 results. Your place in the results depends on how well your site suits the search engine ranking algorithms - which change often.
So even if you have the financial resources to take advantage of paid inclusion programs, you still need to optimize your site using Search Engine Power Pack. It's a full suite of search engine optimization tools that help you write META tags, select your keywords, optimize your site for individual search engines, submit your site, and then track your rank.
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