"All life is an experiment."Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Search Engine Marketing - the Art of Playing To Win
With the holiday season just around the corner, more and more small businesses are attempting to compete with the big-box retailers in the complex game of paid-search marketing. And why not? Paid search is a great way to drive targeted traffic to small ...
Search Engine Myths And Realities
Search engines have been around since the early days of the web, helping Internet users to find information as web sites have grown from a few hundred to millions in number. But why is it that some web sites always appear on the first couple of search ...
The 11 Deadly Sins of Search Engine Optimization
(Common mistakes and misconceptions about search optimization and marketing)By Jeff PalmerThere is so much misinformation floating through the internet regarding search engine marketing and optimization that it's important to shed some light on a few ...
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There have been a lot of changes on the search engine front in
the past year. So many that it's hard to keep track of who's
still a major player and who isn't in the search engine game.
With so many turning to "Pay for Submission and Pay per Click"
models, there aren't a lot left that still accept free submissions.
And of those that do,it's hard to tell exactly which ones are
worth your time.
Let's review the list to see who's still standing, who's
charging and who isn't:
1) Yahoo: http://add.yahoo.com/fast/add?+Business
This is not an engine, but a directory where listings are added
by real humans. With over a million listings, Yahoo is considered
the largest directory online today. All commercial sites must pay
a $299.00 fee to submit to "Yahoo Express" per year. Adult sites
must pay $600.00 for submission. Be careful, though -- if they
don't like your site they keep your fee. Yes, you heard it right.
Even if they don't approve of your site and add it to the directory
they do not refund your submission fee.
Paying Yahoo for submission is not the only way to get listed
there. They also pull the top three bid positions from Overture
(formerly Goto.com) and display them at the top of the search
results pages. Yahoo calls those listings "Sponsor Matches,"and
also runs more Overture listings at the bottom of the page,under
the heading "More Sponsored Matches."
2) Altavista: http://altavista.com/addurl/
Reaches over 45 million visitors worldwide and one of the few
still offering free submission. However, inclusion - if you
are accepted - can take a while. But you can ensure that your
site will be placed quickly by opting for their "Express Inclusion"
service. For six months, one URL submission will run you $39.00,
with 2-10 URL's for an additional $29.00 each.
Altavista also displays Overture's top 4 bid positions at the
top of the search results page, under the heading "Products
and Services." These listings include descriptions.And Altavista
runs more Overture results at the bottom of the page. These are
just clickable links without descriptions.
3) Google: http://www.google.com/addurl.html
Still a Net favorite, Google is used more than 150 million times
a day for searches. Free submission is still an option. Google
also provides results to other engines and directories such as
Netscape Search, Yahoo and AOL Search. They recently launched
their own "Pay Per Click" program, called "Ad Words Select."
This allows you to bid on key phrases or words, and when someone
searches for those words, your text ad is shown in the right-hand
column on the search results page. For more on this go to:
https://adwords.google.com/select/main?cmd=Login
Ad Words Select will cost you 5.00 and a credit card number to
get your site enrolled. Google is also the exclusive provider of
sponsored links to AOL Search, pulling the sponsored links from
its Ad Words Select Program. The top 3 ads will be displayed as
sponsored links on AOL.Netscape will begin displaying Google's
Ad Words sponsored links come August of 2002.
4) Inktomi: http://www.inktomi.com/products/web_search/submit.html
Provides results to many engines and directories such as Iwon,
MSN, Hotbot, and more. Each URL submission will cost you $39.00
per year and only $25.00 a year for each URL thereafter.The
benefit of listing with Inktomi is the exposure your site will
receive with its search partners.
5) The Open Directory Project: http://dmoz.org/add.html
Also known as DMOZ, the ODP is hosted and administered by Netscape
Communication Corp. All submissions are reviewed by a human before
being added to the directory and each category has what is called
an "ODP Editor" who is responsible for that category.
DMOZ provides results to many search partners, such as All The Web,
DirectHit, HotBot, Google, Lycos, Altavista, etc. Submission is free,
although cumbersome. You'll have to drill down to find the appropriate
category to submit to, then click the "add URL" link located at the
top of the page.
6) Overture: (formerly known as Goto.com) http://www.overture.com/
Solely a Pay Per Click search engine, with Overture you choose key
words/ phrases that you want your site to appear under and try to
outbid the competition for a top billing. The higher you bid,the
higher your URL on the search results page. They have a $20.00 a
month spending minimum and a minimum bid of 0.05 per keyword/phrase.
The biggest benefit of being listed here is the relationship that
Overture has with some of the other major search engines /directories.
Basically, if you bid into the top 3 or 4 positions, your site will
also enjoy top listings in Yahoo, Altavista, MSN, Lycos, Infospace,
Ask Jeeves, CNET and more. Generally, these listings are shown as
"sponsored links" at the top of their search results page. Trying
to get those top bid positions is well worth it with the type of
exposure you'll receive on some of the majors. They recently lost
the contract to supply sponsored links to AOL Search, but they do
still provide search results for AOL's Europe Net properties in the
UK, France and Germany.
7) Excite: http://www.Excite.com
Once a major player, Excite now resembles more of a Portal since
being bought out a few years ago by @home, which subsequently went
bankrupt. Search results are now pulled from Overture and Looksmart.
As you can no longer submit directly to Excite, if you want to be
listed here you'll need to open an account with one of the above to
make an appearance.
8) LookSmart: http://www.LookSmart.com
A directory compiled by humans providing results to MSN, Iwon,
Altavista, and others. Some of Looksmart's listings come from
Inktomi as a back up. Now strictly a Pay Per Click directory,
it will cost you a $49.00 set-up fee and .15 per click thru
with a minimum of $150.00 account deposit. Looksmart angered
a lot of its users when they announced this change. It remains
to be seen if this policy shift results in the death of
Looksmart or turns out to be a smart business decision.
A new agreement has just been signed which will allow LookSmart's
listings to appear on InfoSpace's meta-search product over at
Excite and WebCrawler.com . Looksmart also provides results
to InfoSpace's other sites http://www.Metacrawler.com and
http://www.Dogpile.com
9) AOL Search: http://search.aol.com/
Recently signed with Google to use their search results and to
display their sponsored links from their "Ad Words Select Program."
Listings also come from The Open Directory Project. You can submit
at ODP, or search through the categories at AOL and find the best
fit and click the "submit a site" link at the bottom of the page,
which will take you over to the ODP for submission. The top 3
sponsored links on AOL's search results page are pulled from
the top 3 ads in Google's Ad Words Select Program.
10) Hotbot http://hotbot.lycos.com/addurl.asp
Hotbot is owned by Lycos and is presently making some changes to
their free submission page - how they will affect you remains to
be seen. Results on Hotbot also come from Direct Hit and some from
Inktomi and the ODP. You can also add your listing here by
submitting to Lycos at http://searchservices.lycos.com/searchservices/
You can still submit for free, but you'll have to sign up as
a member of Lycos first before they'll let you have the privilege.
Hotbot also displays the top 3 results from Overture on their
search results page.
11) MSN Search: http://search.msn.com/
MSN Search pulls results from Looksmart, then when no more listings
are found they pull from Inktomi's database. They also pull some
results from Overture.com which they display at the bottom of
the page called "Web Pages."
You can't submit directly to MSN; you'll have to submit to
Looksmart at http://listings.looksmart.com/?synd=zdd&chan=zddresults
to show up here.
12) Ask Jeeves: http://askjeeves.com/
A different sort of directory where you perform searches by
asking a question. There are two ways to get listed. The free
way is to send an email to url@askjeeves.com with a URL and
a brief description of your site. The other way is to go to
http://ask.ineedhits.com and pay for inclusion. The first URL
will run you $30.00; 2 or more only $18.00. The subscription
period is 15 months. Since Ask Jeeves also owns Teoma, paying
for submission will get you listed there, too.
Ask Jeeves also displays "Sponsored Links" on their results
pages, with the top 4 bid positions from Overture being
displayed there.
13) Netscape Search: http://search.netscape.com/
Results on Netscape come from The ODP and Netscape itself. Starting
in August of 2002, the "Partner Search Results" that are displayed
will be pulled from the top bids at Google's Ad Words Select Program.
Overture had the contract to supply sponsored links but recently
lost out to Google. However, you'll still see Overture's links being
displayed until August.
To get your site listed you can submit at The ODP http://dmoz.org/add.html
14) Teoma: AKA Direct Hit http://www.teoma.com/
Formerly called Direct Hit, this is now owned by Ask Jeeves and
renamed Teoma. These guys are now positioning themselves to give
Google a run for its money. Teoma also provides search results
to Hotbot. Sponsored results are also pulled from Overture and
displayed at the top of their search results pages.
The only way to submit directly to Teoma is to pay for submission
at http://ask.ineedhits.com/ The first URL will run you $30.00,
2 or more URL's only 18.00 each for 15 months.
15) Lycos: http://searchservices.lycos.com/searchservices/
Lycos also owns Hotbot. Some of their listings come from The ODP,
Fast Search/AllTheWeb with sponsored listings shown at the top
of the search results pages coming from Overture.com.
You can submit for free at....
http://searchservices.lycos.com/searchservices/lite_step1.aspor
or opt for "Lycos InSite Select" pay submission, with an annual
membership fee of $18.00 and annual cost per URL of $12.00. If
you go the pay route you are guaranteed inclusion within 48 hours
of submission.
16) AllTheWeb.com: http://www.alltheweb.com/
Owned by Fast Search, you can still submit your site for free with
no guarantee of inclusion at http://www.alltheweb.com/add_url.php
Some of AllTheWeb's search results are pulled directly from
The ODP and Fast Search.
There you have it, the who's and what's of who's still playing in
the search engine games. Search engines /directories are always in
a state of flux and it's quite possible by the time you read this
some of the information I've gathered for you may have changed.
To keep abreast of the changes I strongly suggest these sites
and subscribing to their newsletters:
Search Engine Watch http://www.searchenginewatch.com/
Search Engine Guide http://www.searchengineguide.com/
Search Engine Headlines http://www.searchengineheadlines.com/
Bruce Clay has an excellent chart that shows the relationships
of the search engines and who's feeding off of who that is
continually updated at:http://bruceclay.com/searchenginechart.pdf
You need to be quick to keep up with all of the changes in this
field so pay attention, because "Times they are a Changing" FAST!
About the Author
Merle http://www.EzineAdAuction.com
"Where some of the BEST Deals in Ezine Advertising are Made"
Buy & Sell Ezine Ads in a live auction setting!
Publishers sell off your excess inventory and Buyers
pick up some Fantastic bargains. Go now!
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 Guest comment: Why you should optimise newsletters for search engines (Netimperative)
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KISSIN' KUZZINS: Search engines available tailored for genealogical research (The Lufkin Daily News)
The September issue of Family Tree Magazine has some interesting information regarding search engines. My Heritage Search looks for a name in more than 1,350 genealogy databases. You need to be patient because such a search takes several minutes — but you might hit paydirt. When you have a minute, I suggest you visit www.myheritage.com/research and see what you can find.
Search engines search for better understanding (San Francisco Chronicle)
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Studies show that 85 percent of Internet users rely on search engines. Where a company's Web site appears among search results from Google, Yahoo or MSN is crucial since many Internet users do not go past page one of search results. Kellen Interactive's new Web site for Search Engine Marketing and Optimization -- Page1SearchEngines.com -- offers a complimentary search engine ranking report for ...
Shopping Search Tactics (Search Engine Roundtable)
Learn how content from your e-commerce or merchant site can - and should! - be included in shopping search engines. Moderator: * Brian A. Smith, Analyst, ComparisonEngines Speakers: * Aaron Shear, Partner, Boost Search Marketing * Brian Mark, CTO, Toolbarn.com * Greg Hintz, General Manager, Yahoo! Shopping * Paul Dillon, Director, Director Commercial Search, Live Search Brian ...
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