Paid Search Engine Submissions (May 3rd, 2002)

Unfortunate Evil or Blessing in Disguise?

Fact: Paid submission is here to stay.

The days of the free Internet for businesses are over and as
always it is the companies that adapt the quickest that will
continue to thrive.

====================
What is Paid Submit?
====================

Once upon a time there was no choice but to wait up to three
months to see if a major search engine would CONSIDER your site
for a listing.

For personal home pages that is one thing but from a business
owners point of view it is extremely frustrating.

As the search engines struggle to survive financially in the
"Post New Economy" days it became logical for them to offer a
paid submission option.

This is an option to have your site indexed (just listed, nothing
to do with placement) by a search engine within a reasonable
amount of time at a set price.

Think of it as a yellow pages (phone book) listing. If you want
your business listed you pay a fee. If you don't want it listed
you don't pay. Simple enough.

=====================
Why Use Paid Submit?
=====================

With an almost infinite amount of choices for your online
marketing dollars if often seems there are more ways to lose
money online than to make money.

As with any financial decision you need to be careful and measure
your potential return.

Being dependant on free submissions means you may be waiting 6-12
months before you are able to generate a decent amount of search
engine traffic. First you need to get indexed and then begin
the painful process of climbing the rankings all the while never
knowing when your changes will take effect.

With paid submit you are listed quickly and in most cases your
site is refreshed regularly allowing you to make changes and
react much quicker. As such you can start receiving traffic much
sooner which you can convert to customers and justify the cost
of the paid submission.

==================
Where To Submit?
==================

Here are the places you should currently consider for paid
submissions if you are serious about getting your site indexed
quickly. The breakdown is in rough order of priority.

Inktomi:

Powers AOL search (until this summer when Google takes over)
Also powers secondary search results for MSN, Overture, HotBot,
Looksmart and many smaller search sites. Important to watch what
happens this summer with AOL as it is the second major contract
they have lost to Google.

Cost per year:
1st URL        $39
URLs 2-1000 $25 each
---------------------

Lycos:

Is actually a submission with AllTheWeb/Fast that powers Lycos
search. Lycos is making a search revival with new fresher
listings and are on the rise again as a legitimate search portal.

Cost per year:
Membership: $18.00
URL:            $12.00
---------------------

Teoma/Ask Jeeves:

The new kid on the block Teoma already offers a paid submit, for
an introductory period you get a 15 month listing at the 12 month
cost. With all the press they received as a Google killer (over
rated of course) and the listings that appear through Ask Jeeves
this has become a worthwhile submission.

Cost per year:
1st URL        $30
URLs 2-1000 $18 each
---------------------

AltaVista:

AV seem to think webmasters won't notice they are charging the
same amount for a 6 month service other search engines charge for
a year. Since they generate a handful of the traffic they used to
this option is becoming less attractive although for additional
fees (of course) you can get the site listed in their individual
country indices or you can spice up your listing with logos and
other custom features.

Cost per 6 months:
1st URL         $39
URLs 2-10     $29 each
URLs 11-500  $19 each
---------------------

Yahoo:

Yahoo is actually often the largest source of traffic for sites
that get a good listing but the $299/year fee does tend to limit
this option for new business owners,

Looksmart:

Don't even ask about Looksmart. They are in such a mess right now
you don't know where your money will end up or for what purpose.

================
How To Submit?
================

You can visit each search site individually, in most cases they
have semi-coherent instructions or you can have a professional
submission company do the listings for you.

Just think, for less than $150 you can get one page of your site (usually
the index page) listed quickly on AOL, Lycos, AltaVista,
Teoma/Ask Jeeves, and lots of secondary listings for sites like
MSN and Overture.

It is definitely worth it PROVIDING you plan on following up and
optimizing the site. Just submitting to the search engines isn't
enough, it is only step one.

Happy Marketing!

Questions?
Send me an email: mike@surf22.com

Article Related Links: