By Kalena Jordan kalena@high-search-engine-ranking.com   9th October 2001 (updated 12th December 2001). 

[Please note this article is now out of date and the various pricing and business models have changed significantly. For up to date information, please click here]

Below is a round-up of all the Paid search engine options available, with my personal recommendations for which ones are best :

1) AltaVista "Express Inclusion" Service

Search engine AltaVista has started an "Express Inclusion" service
that allows users to submit between 1 to 500 URLs at a time. Once
indexed, the URL's will be refreshed weekly and maintained for a
period of 6 months. The system is likened to that of Inktomi's “Search
Submit" spidering service.

Pricing :

                            Price for 6 months (USD)

1st URL                  $39.00

URLs #2-10             $29.00 each

URLs #11-500          $19.00 each  

More : http://www.altavista.com/sites/search/express_incl

2) Inktomi Search Submit Inclusion Program

Inktomi Search Submit is a way to get your site content discovered through Inktomi's extensive network of Web Search partners, including AOL, iWon, MSN & HotBot. Search Submit includes your most valuable content in the Inktomi index and keeps the content fresh with 48-hour updates for a one-year subscription period.

Inktomi "Search/Submit Program" offers these benefits:

·  Fast inclusion into the Inktomi web database

·  48 hour page refreshes

·  12 month page inclusion within the Inktomi database

·  Click-thru reporting

Inktomi Search/Submit is priced according to the number of URLs (Web pages) you submit. Billing, reporting, and account management is through Trellian.

Pricing :

[Web Rank uses this service for our own site and other clients, with excellent results. We highly recommend submitting AT LEAST your top 5 pages for each domain via this method.]

More: Click Here

3) Yahoo! Express Submission

Yahoo! Express is an expedited fee-based site suggestion service for web sites submitted to the Yahoo! directory. This service is now required for commercial sites submitting to categories in "Business and Economy/Business to Business" or "Business and Economy/Shopping and Services," but it available for any site.

By signing up with Yahoo! Express, you ensure that Yahoo! will consider and respond to your suggestion in an expedited manner.

Your payment and participation in accordance with the Yahoo! Express Service Agreement guarantee that a member of Yahoo!'s editorial staff will look at your site, consider your suggestion to include the site in the directory, and respond to you within seven (7) business days from the date that you submit your site for consideration (excluding holiday periods observed by Yahoo! and any delays due to problems processing your request). Response times are measured based on Yahoo!'s mail servers.

Important: Payment does not guarantee inclusion in the directory, site placement, or site commentary. It only guarantees that Yahoo! will respond to your suggestion within seven business days, by either adding or denying the site.

Pricing : USD 299 per URL.

[Web Rank uses this service for our own site and other clients, with excellent results. However if you already have sites listed in Yahoo, you cannot use Yahoo Express to submit your site again. Instead you must use their Change Request form. With Yahoo’s huge market share, it is vital that your site is listed in Yahoo’s Directory and the best way to get listed quickly is by paying the fee for Express Submission. The way you submit your site to Yahoo and the title and description used can make or break your listing, so we suggest that you hire a professional to do this or read up carefully before submitting.]

More : http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/express/express-13.html

4) Looksmart Express Submission

Another expedited service, Looksmart Express Submit claims to get your site listed in the search directories of MSN, AltaVista, Excite, CNN, iWon, Juno and more than 370 ISPs. LookSmart claims you have the potential to reach 77% Internet users by using the services.

Looksmart Express Submit Features:

• Guaranteed submission review within two business days*

*Within two business days you will be notified whether your site qualifies for inclusion in the directory. It may take additional time for it to be live on our site.

Pricing: USD 299 per URL (Express Submit)

Looksmart Change a Description Features:

• Feature products or services in your site description
• Update your description across the LookSmart Network in one step
• Get reviewed within five business days**

Pricing: USD 199 per URL (Change a Description)

Looksmart Add a Category Features:

• Increase search relevance with targeted categories
• Broaden your exposure with multiple placements
• Get reviewed within five business days**

Pricing: USD 149 per URL (Add a Category)

** Within five business days, you will be notified whether their editors have approved your suggestions. It may take additional time for changes to appear across the LookSmart Network.           

[Web Rank uses this service for our own site and other clients, with excellent results. Webrank recommend submitting the home pages of each of your domains via Looksmart Express and if the budget allows, submitting your sites to additional Looksmart categories. If you are currently unhappy with your ranking on Looksmart, we also suggest paying to Change a Description, which gives you the opportunity to include keywords and/or phrases within the listing and improves your site’s chances of ranking well for related terms.]

5) GoTo (Overture) Pay Per Click Keyword Buys

If you create a keyword campaign on GoTo (now re-branded as Overture) and you buy their "premium listings" (positions 1, 2 or 3) for particular keywords or search phrases, your bid buys you top listings on Overture's partner sites (AOL, Lycos, Infospace, HotBot & Netscape).

For example, go to www.overture.com and type in a search for wine. You'll see the top 3 spots go to Gold Medal Wine, NapaCabs and Brown Derby. Now go to www.lycos.com and type in a search for wine. You'll see that the very first listings are "Featured Listings" - these are the top 3 paid listings from Overture - Gold Medal Wine, NapaCabs and Brown Derby. The regular Lycos directory listings follow underneath. So basically, purchasing Premium listings on Overture can give you top billing on other major search engines too.

Features:

Pricing: depends on the keyword or phrase you are bidding on and what position you want to purchase. Each account has a USD 20 minimum monthly spend and there is a USD 50 deposit required to open the account (gets credited towards your keyword bids). There is a minimum bid requirement of USD 0.05 per click through. You pay the bid price EACH TIME somebody clicks through to your site from the Overture and partner listings.

Web Rank staff recently did a little research into the costs of wine related keywords on Overture. Here's what we found (cost per click in USD) : 

wine

1.     0.59
2.     0.56
3.     0.55
10.   0.35
50.   0.05 

Australian wine

1.    0.36
2.    0.27
3.    0.26
11.  0.05

wine reviews

1.    0.15
2.    0.15
3.    0.13
7.    0.05 

wine shopping

1.    0.26
2.    0.12
3.    0.11
7.    0.05

wine ratings

  1.    0.12
  2.    0.12
  3.    0.11
  6.    0.05

wine articles

1.    0.05

wine sites

1.    0.05

So, for example, if you had a wine related site and were thinking of creating a Keyword Bid campaign on Overture, the latter two search terms above would be better value for money than the others and would guarantee you top billing in Overture’s partner engines.

[Web Rank have used Overture (in it’s GoTo form) for our own web sites with mixed results. While the rankings on popular terms are very high with Premium listings, the click throughs can quickly add up, costing a lot of money per month. Choosing cheaper keywords and phrases that are still commonly searched on is the best strategy. Web Rank recommends that if you are thinking of using Overture, establish a short term keyword campaign and conduct thorough research using WordTracker or a similar keyword research tool beforehand to see which terms are the most popular but the cheapest (most cost effective overall)].

More : www.overture.com (choose the Pay For Performance link).

The above article may be re-published as long as the content remains unchanged and the following paragraph is included at the end of the article, including the URL links:

Article by Kalena Jordan, one of the first search engine optimization experts in Australia and New Zealand, who is well known and respected in the industry, particularly in the U.S. As well as running her own SEO business Web Rank, Kalena manages Search Engine College, an online training institution offering instructor-led short courses and downloadable self-study courses in Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing subjects.

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