Yahoo Publisher Network to Compete with AdSense For the past four years, Google has been the undisputed leader in search. Its rivals, Yahoo!, MSN and Ask Jeeves have spent the past few years working to narrow the vast technological and popularity gap between them and the great Google. It has been a long and hard fought series of skirmishes and battles but this week, two of the three, Yahoo! and Ask Jeeves, signaled they might be getting closer. In June 2003, Google made one of the wildest moves in the history of the Internet by innovating on the paid-advertising idea originally conceived by Overture. Already the most popular tool among search engine users, Google gave website publishers a revenue generating gift that kept on giving. Google's great PPC innovation was to permit AdWords advertising to appear on private websites, splitting the click-through fees 50/50 with the private webmasters whose sites delivered traffic. By giving private webmasters the opportunity to generate incidental revenues by acting as billboards for AdWords, Google saw profits from AdWords skyrocket while Internet users became conditioned to accept the small and unobtrusive ads. The paid-search advertising market is worth billions and is expected to be worth tens of billions in a few years time. Yahoo! is betting that market will support a growing network of small to medium sized online publishers who will in turn bring more revenues to Yahoo!. Google, which generates over 90% of its enormous revenues from the AdWords program, might face serious competition from Yahoo!, which currently receives about 60% of revenues from paid-advertising. This week, Yahoo! released a beta-test version of a similar program known as the Yahoo! Publisher Network or YPN. Open to a limited number of testers, including StepForth News, the YPN is meant to compete directly with Google's AdWords program. The beta is open, for the most part to US based users only. StepForth is fortunate to be among the few non-US based beta testers. Yahoo! has had two long years to study the AdSense model and appear to have adopted a unique publisher-focused philosophy offering small and medium sized publishers access to syndicated Yahoo! products and services in a bid to brand Yahoo! content as well as Yahoo! generated paid-advertising. In other words, Yahoo! is not only serving paid-ads to webmasters, it is also helping them bulk site content with Yahoo! products such as search, shopping, travel, RSS, user-option personalization featured, and eventually, Yahoo! syndicated music and video services. "Yahoo! has developed many highly successful relationships with web publishers around the world, and is building on those experiences to bring new revenue sources and compelling content to even more high quality sites," said Bill Demas, senior vice president, Yahoo! Partner Solutions group. "By helping the broader publishing community maximize the value of their sites, we aim to create an even more rewarding Internet experience for publishers, advertisers and users." Much like AdWords, YPN will be a revenue generator for webmasters by delivering advertisements that match the topic of the document they are placed on. The Content Match™ feature enables publishers to place Yahoo!'s contextually-relevant listings on their sites and receive a share of the revenue generated by them. For example, ads that might appear in future editions of the StepForth Newsletter would likely be about search engines, search marketing, blogs, and/or tools for SEOs and website designers. Contextually driven advertising is cool but, profitable as it is, PPC is not the full story behind the YPN. The Internet is the backbone network of global communications. Currently facilitating shopping, travel bookings, entertainment and instant-research, the Internet has supplanted traditional tools such as television and radio because it can easily mimic both mediums while simultaneously performing a number of other functions. Users interface with the Internet via documents that are, for the most part, created and posted by small to medium sized publishers. Yahoo! has adopted a publisher focused outlook and is looking to place its brand on information and entertainment content offered (eventually) on tens of millions of websites. As publishers from every medium understand, the key to success is in keeping a captivated audience. One of the more interesting features of the YPN will be access to Y!Q, a context-driven search tool which is also in beta-test. Y!Q is a Yahoo! search application that uses the topic of the document it is embedded in or a trigger-word set by the webmaster to present search results in a transparent overlay. The results shown in the overlay consist of images, two news stories, and the first three organic search listings. The logic is site users will stay on a document instead of opening another search window and traveling away from the site. Y!Q is an open-beta. Webmasters interested in using Y!Q on their sites should refer to the Y!Q for publishers page. Other integrated features in the beta include, Add to My Yahoo and Yahoo Maps, showing an inclination towards local, mobile and personalized search results. "Add to My Yahoo!" will help webmasters and publishers find their way onto user monitors and personalized search results via the Yahoo! branded RSS feed and subscription service. RSS stands for really simple syndication and is basically a XML feed that delivers fresh content to people who subscribe to it. As with Y!Q, Add to My Yahoo! is already available for webmasters and publishers. The inclusion of Yahoo! Maps shows Yahoo!'s understanding that user or webmaster generated maps are extremely important for local and mobile search users. Yahoo! has recently introduced an API for Yahoo! maps allowing webmasters to place geographic information on Yahoo! generated maps. Yahoo! timed the release of the YPN beta to coincide with next week's Search Engine Strategies Conference in San Jose. As beta testers, we will be using some of these features in future editions. Article by Jim Hedger, News Editor, StepForth Search Engine Placement, Inc. www.stepforth.com - Published Aug. 2005
Google AdWords™ Article by Kalena Jordan, www.searchenginecollege.com - Published Jun. 2005 Consumers Search Before Buying When hunting for stronger sales, it is wise to go where the game is. When the game gets very much smarter, wise hunters learn to adapt. - quote found inscribed in obscure cave formation near Fernwood BC. As the oft' quoted phrase goes, "...the more things change, the more they stay the same." This phrase can be applied to the search engine marketing sector time and time again. Though several events in the business world of search attracted major media attention last week, interest in organic search has re-emerged among webmasters and search marketing agencies. Two years after the popularization of pay-per-click programs, advertisers are starting to form sophisticated strategies combining managed PPC campaigns and consistent organic placements. Consumer behaviors are rapidly changing as buyers are researching their purchases online before spending their money. A recent study,"Search Before the Purchase " from DoubleClick and comScore Networks notes half of all online purchases are preceded by multiple product-specific searches. A similar tendency occurs in the brick and mortar retail world with consumers using search engines as product catalogs researching products, vendors and even the fastest routes before heading out to shop. The study also offers a number of valuable insights into how consumers use search engines to research products they are interested in. Using a list of 30 sites from the Apparel, Computer Hardware, Sports/Fitness, and Travel industries, the researchers examined the habits of 1.5 million U.S. Internet users. It followed the long-term behaviors of identified people who made at least one purchase on one of the 30 sites in the survey. The findings will not surprise organic search engine marketers as they confirm the high value of strong search engine placement. Know what your potential buyers want to know. Keyword selection stands out as the most important point in the survey. On average, about 75% of pre-purchase search is conducted using generic terms. Only 18.1% - 28.5% of searchers looked for brand names. It is only when consumers are close to making a final purchase decision that they enter brand names into search engines. Travel consumers tend to know what they want. As part of their methodology, comScore looked at the number of searches conducted using generic terms and brand names and compared the results with the number of actual clicks those searches generated. While search users looking for travel information only typed brand names 21.2% of the time, they clicked on (eventually purchasing) brand name generated results 21.5% of the time, the lowest disparity between use of brand in search and actual clicks generated by brand-names. Apparel buyers tend to think about clothes, a lot. In the apparel sector, search engine users typed a brand name 27.5% of the time, clicking through an average of 32% of the time. Interestingly, a high degree of pre-purchase research is seen in the apparel sector often starting months before buying. Six to ten weeks before actually selecting a product, online shoppers start entering generic terms. As the weeks go by, they hone in on specific brand names and brand items until they find exactly what they are looking for. Similar behaviors are shown in the three other sectors studied. Immediate ROI is a poor way to gage success. Much like television advertising, sales on search engines stem from effectively branding a product and putting that brand in front of consumers time and time again. According to the study, "...most buyers complete their in-market search engine research two or more weeks before the make a purchase online." The correct way to measure the success of an optimization campaign is heavily debated in the Search Engine Marketing community and centers around Return on Investment (ROI) vs. Top10 Placement. Many SEOs believe that the achievement of Top10 placements should be the reportable goal while others believe that ROI is the only relevant outcome. According to the results of the study, both are important with ROI (as assumed by clicks) directly related to consistent Top10 placements throughout the research/buying cycle. Brand it and they will come. Ultimately, search engine users are looking to make the smartest, most cost-effective purchase possible. The study proves what most SEOs have known for years, search users are increasingly savvy consumers. With a world wide web of information in front of them, search users are instantly accessing the information they feel the need to know before buying. While researching, they are going to come across several brand names, some more than others. The search world shares the rule of branding with other forms of traditional media. Regardless of how a search engine user sees your product name, the more often they see it, the better chance they will at least look at your products. As with the various traditional marketing vehicles, placement plays a large role in consumer confidence and loyalty. A product or brand reference that consistently appears in the Top10 organic results with corresponding PPC results and advertising on other relevant websites tends to sell best. Perhaps the most interesting development in the world of search this week is a sense of a newly minted pattern developing in SEO/SEM techniques. The DoubleClick - comScore study is one of a growing number of papers showing the high value of organic results as part of an overall search marketing strategy. Today's search environment offers advertisers more options than any other medium that has ever existed. The success of a search marketing campaign is greatly enhanced with organic search engine placement but the end result comes down to how advertisers and their search marketers uses the increasing number of tools at their disposal. Article by Jim Hedger, SEO Manager, StepForth Search Engine Placement, Inc. www.stepforth.com - Published Mar. 2005 Click fraud is becoming a major problem for online advertisers. If you advertise your web site on pay per click search engines such as Overture or Google AdWords, chances are that you pay way too much for your clicks. What is click fraud? Click fraud is the practice of artificially inflating the number of clicks in a pay per click online campaign. Overture defines click fraud as clicks arising for reasons other than the good-faith intention of an Internet user to visit a web site to purchase goods or services or to obtain information. Google defines click fraud, or invalid clicks, as any method used to artificially and/or maliciously generate clicks or page impressions. No matter how you define it, click fraud means that someone is cheating you and that you pay too much for your pay per click campaigns. Who are these people? There are three main groups that click on pay per click ads without real interest in the offered goods:
Is this really a big problem? No pay per click company denies that pay per click fraud exists. According to some web analytics companies, as much as 50% of all click activity is fraudulent. This means that your pay per click marketing activities are half effective as they could be because of click fraud. What can you do to save money? The best way to lower your pay per click advertising costs is to optimize your current ads so that they deliver a better return-on-investment. There are many things you can do to improve the effectiveness of your pay per click ads. Details can be found in our Google AdWords eBook. In addition to useful information that helps you to lower your advertising costs while increasing your profits, the eBook contains a list of keywords that attract click fraudsters and information on how to avoid click fraud. Further information about writing successful link exchange messages, contact us below.. Copyright Axandra.com - Web site promotion software tools - Published Jan. 2005 Are you paying too much for pay per click advertising? The cost for pay per click advertising is on the rise. According to Jupiter Research, the average click price will jump from US$0.29 in 2003 to US$0.26 in 2004 and US$0.47 in 2009. And that's only the price for an average keyword. The price for the top spot on Overture.com for "data recovery" is currently US$4.30 per click. Google displays an average cost pay click of US$9,10 for that keyword. That's quite a lot for a single click. But do you get what you're paying for? US$10 million for consumers that do not exist Click fraud is the practice of skewing pay-per-click advertising data by generating illegitimate hits. Some statistics claim that as much as 50 percent of pay per click advertising in some competitive categories could be the product of bogus clickers. "John Squire, vice president for product marketing for Coremetrics, which provides consulting and Web analysis for online merchants like Eddie Bauer, OfficeMax and CompUSA, estimated that the company's clients were spending about US$10 million a year on fraudulent clicks. That is, they are spending about US$10 million on consumers that do not exist." Click fraud is done by traffic affiliate partners of PPC search engines who make a commission on paid clicks generated by their web site visitors and by competitors who want to decrease the effectiveness of your pay per click campaign. Some of them hire human clickers or use automated programs that click the paid listings for them. More information about click fraud and the different methods can be found in these articles: What does this mean to you? Pay per click advertising can be a good way to quickly get visitors to your web site. However, pay per click advertising should only supplement your normal search engine optimization activities. It should not be your main way of getting search engine traffic. Track the return on investment for your pay per click campaigns to make sure that pay per click advertising really works for you. A Consumer WebWatch study showed that web surfers prefer non-paid search engine listings. For this reason, it's better to get high rankings in the normal search engine results. High rankings in search engines will bring your web site targeted visitors without paying for every single click. Further information about writing successful link exchange messages, contact us below.. Copyright Axandra.com - Web site promotion software tools - Published Nov. 2004 There are two ways to get to the top of the search engine listings: using search engine optimization (SEO) to boost your rankings, and buying your way to the top with pay per click (PPC) listings. Which method should you use to promote your web site? Instant Gratification With PPC PPC advertising programs such as Google Adwords and Yahoo's Overture place a small text ad for your web site in the Sponsored Links section of the search results. Each time someone clicks on your PPC listing, you pay a certain amount of money. Prices are set by competitive bidding and can range from surprisingly cheap ($0.33 for "java book") to insanely expensive ($12.98 for "web hosting"). The search engine optimization process is much slower. You have to work your way to the top of the free search results by tuning your web pages so the search engines can better understand them. Services like NetMechanic's Search Engine Power Pack can guide you in optimizing your site by analyzing pages for problems and telling you how to properly emphasize keywords. PPC and SEO have very different flavors. The biggest advantage of PPC listings is that you can immediately reach the top of the search engine result listing. In contrast, it can take 3 months before you get the full benefit of your SEO campaign. Compared to that time, a PPC campaign feels like instant gratification. But be prepared to pay for that leap to the top. You have to pay cold, hard cash for your listing, and your listing disappears as soon as you stop paying. Running an effective PPC campaign can cost you thousands of dollars each month. Compared to that, the $99 a year price for Search Engine Power Pack looks like a bargain. 1 + 1 = 4. Really! So PPC is quick and relatively easy, but can cost significant money. SEO is inexpensive, but requires you to invest time and effort in tuning your web pages. Which approach should you be using to promote your Web site? For most people the answer is to use both. Consider PPC as a short-term solution and SEO for the long term. Some of the advantages of this combined approach are obvious. If it can take 3 months for SEO to show maximum results, why not run a PPC campaign during that time? But there are other, surprising synergies you can get by combining both methods. In particular, a PPC campaign is the best way to find the keywords you should be targeting in your SEO campaign. Finding the Right Words Wouldn't it be a shame if you put a lot of effort into your SEO campaign, only to find you chose the wrong keywords? For example, suppose we run the web site for a Colorado ski lodge. In our SEO campaign we decide to target the keyword "ski resort." Search Engine Power Pack's keyword popularity tool shows 24,804 monthly searches for that keyword, and that certainly looks attractive. You spend weeks optimizing your pages and working your way to the top of the free listings, but then something funny happens - you get lots of visitors, but very few sales. Why? There are many reasons why a keyword can fail:
The important thing is that you just spent 3 months fighting your way to the top for a keyword that doesn't work. All your effort was wasted. A PPC campaign lets you experiment with a wide range of keywords. Since it takes only a few minutes to create a listing for a keyword, it's easy to experiment with many of different words. It's common for a PPC campaign to target 100 or more keywords. Both Overture and Google include conversion-tracking tools that help you understand which keywords are generating sales. Once you've seen which words are working, you can target them for search engine optimization. My preferred approach to running a search engine marketing campaign is to start with a small scale PPC campaign. Your PPC budget doesn't have to be large, since you aren't trying to buy all the clicks available for all your keywords. You want just enough traffic to let you learn which keywords are working. Within a month, you should have enough data to start your SEO campaign. Once that starts to show results, you can lower your keyword bids or drop them entirely. There is one other advantage to this combined approach: it helps you quantify the value of your SEO work. If your company spends $5,000 a month for PPC listings, then an optimization campaign that cuts that spending has clear, tangible value. Suddenly your boss can see why SEO is worth the time you are spending on it! by Tom Dahm - http://www.netmechanic.com/news - Published Sep. 2004 Surefire Google Adwords Formula Success with Google Adwords isn't quite as easy as some would have you believe. By John Gergye Copyright © 2004 - http://www.traffic-test-tube.com - Published Sep. 2004 Google AdSense Rewards Content with Advertising Revenue If you've been looking for an easy way to increase your website's revenue, Google AdSense may be your answer.
Anatomy of a Search Engine Placement Campaign With the tremendous changes seen in the search engine marketplace over the past year, the conduct and techniques of winning search engine marketing campaigns have changed. Tactics and assumptions that worked last year may not produce the same results today. With a realignment of market share between Google and Yahoo, and the introduction of new algorithms and services, the playing field looks remarkably different in 2004. Search Engine Marketing campaigns have become far more complex over the past twelve months. Good SEO and SEM firms have had to become competent with a larger number of marketing tools offered by the search engines. Due to these changes, many Search Engine Marketing firms have had to raise their prices or alter the levels of service offered to clients. In reconciling our techniques with the changing landscape, our industry in many cases, has not done enough to explain how and/or why we make our decisions, recommendations, and on-site modifications. The Shifting Landscape of Cybersearch The change with the greatest impact on the behaviors of SEO firms was the loss of distribution dominance Google enjoyed for about 18-months. From the middle of 2002 to the beginning of 2004, Google's database supplied approximately 76% of all search results in one way or another. In mid-February of this year, Yahoo stopped drawing results from the Google database. Around the same time, MSN stopped drawing results from LookSmart and shifted to the Yahoo owned Inktomi directory. These two actions fundamentally changed the nature of search engine marketing campaigns as the distribution of results was suddenly and radically altered. The second major shift in search engine marketing was the exceptional acceptance of Contextual Advertising programs such as Google and Overture's Content Match. Both these programs provide advertisers with an amazing array of distribution sources and, by most accounts have been very successful for the advertisers, distribution partners, and the search engines. Of the two programs, Google's AdWords/AdSense is the most sophisticated with advertisements placed in a greater number of venues based on keywords entered by a searcher, or keywords present in content on a website. Anatomy of a StepForth / SEO Campaign Communication Contracts and Paperwork SEO Application Link Building and Acquisition Client Approval Site Submission and Monitoring It can take between 5 days and 8 weeks to see Top placements on the major search engines. This year, the time it takes has decreased however, with Google only updating itself once per month, getting a strong ranking at Google tends to take a bit longer than on the other search tools. On average, the fastest seems to be Teoma/Ask Jeeves. StepForth begins monitoring client sites 10 days after posting an optimized site to the host-server. We tend to check each site at least once per day. Once we see any placements in the Top30, we forward a debut listing report. That report is followed with monthly placement reports showing clients where their sites sat at the end of each month. (Clients are encouraged to monitor positions themselves during the month). Sometimes we also study client logs to determine how our campaign is working and where it can be more effective. A great tool for extracting data from client logs is Click Tracks. Conclusion Article by Jim Hedger, Senior SEO - StepForth Search Engine Placement, Inc. www.stepforth.com - Published Jul. 2004
Paid Inclusion Going the Way of the Dodo
Late last week, Ask Jeeves announced it was going to cease its paid submission program and allow webmasters to submit sites to its database for free. The announcement was quickly followed by the release of MSN's new search tool that also does not charge fees for inclusion. Of the four major search engines, only Yahoo continues to charge webmasters fees to submit their sites, however even Yahoo is reconsidering its paid-inclusion plans. (Google has never charged for inclusion in its database).
At first, submitting to search engines was absolutely free of cost for webmasters. Search Engines such as AltaVista, Infoseek and Lycos assumed that large-scale advertisers would cover costs by purchasing banner advertising. As a revenue model for search engines, banner advertising simply did not raise enough money to cover the costs of running a large IT operation. During this period of the mid to late 90's, the Internet economy was booming but heading for the bust which hit in April 2000.
Money was literally flying from the pockets of venture capital firms eager to invest early in emerging technologies. Revenue generation was important but took second stage as the proponents of the new-economy believed that the seemingly exponential growth of the IT sector had magically reversed the most ancient law of business, make money or die.
This was the time when small IT firms were suddenly valued as highly or higher than solid old-economy businesses such as TimeWarner or Proctor and Gamble. "Be Big or Be Bust" was a common quote, one the various search engines took to heart. This was the time of convergence, portals and rapid, unhindered growth. This was the time when AOL was able to purchase TimeWarner for what are now nearly worthless stocks and options. Suffice it to say that anyone who did not live through that era would never believe it actually happened. It did happen, and like every bubble before it, the Dot-Com bubble burst, removing the seemingly unlimited flow of cash from the sector.
Along with the burst came the sudden realization that running a search engine is much like running any other business with one notable exception, most businesses start small. Search engines have always been among the most important tools on the Internet and by the time the tech-bubble burst, consumers were already relying on their use to find products and information. Clearly, a revenue generation model that actually boosted the bottom line was essential to remaining in business. Hence the concept of having advertisers pay to be included in the databases of the major search engines.
Paid Inclusion was at one time the most popular revenue model for search engines, emerging shortly after the dot-com crash of 2000. Under paid inclusion programs, webmasters were forced to pay a nominal fee to have their websites included in the databases of search engines such as Alta Vista, Lycos, All the Web, Inktomi, Yahoo and LookSmart. Payment for inclusion did not guarantee Top10 listings however it did guarantee the site would be found by search engine spiders and would receive more frequent spider visits.
As a revenue model, paid-inclusion was a double-edged sword. The search engines were suddenly able to charge for listings that had previously been offered for free, much like the local phone company suddenly charging you to list your home number in the white pages. At this point, it is important to remember that there were already hundreds of millions of websites in most search databases, the vast majority of which had never paid a cent for inclusion. By charging new listings for a service that hundreds of millions were already receiving for free, the paid inclusion model set up a potentially contradictory position in which a paid listing and a free listing would compete for Top placements.
It was naturally assumed that paid listings would receive a rankings boost from the search engines however it was also assumed that search engine users would not necessarily know which ads had been paid for and which were organic. The search engines themselves did not want to point out which were paid as search engine users tended to favor sites they figured had gotten to the top by merit as opposed to money. The situation became so confusing that Ralph Nader's Public Interest Resource Group (PIRG) petitioned the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to investigate and potentially regulate paid inclusion programs. The threat of federal regulation, combined with users' perceived distaste for paid-advertising led the search engines to universally mix sites that had paid for inclusion with the standard non-paid sites. The only real benefit to paying was the increased frequency of spidering enjoyed by paid-inclusion sites.
As it turned out, many SEO firms including StepForth realized that our clients were getting into the search engines without paying for inclusion in their databases and were continuing to get the Top10 placements. Needless to say, most players in the SEO industry simply stopped charging their clients the extra fees for inclusion. Paid-inclusion turned out to be a rather clunky revenue model, especially when compared to the far more lucrative contextual advertising model found in Pay-Per-Click tools such as Overture and Google AdWords.
Yahoo is the only search tool that continues to ask webmasters to pay for their sites to be included in the Yahoo search database however the vast majority of our clients is getting Top 10 placements at Yahoo without paying. This happens because, like all algorithmic search tools, Yahoo uses a spider to find websites by following links from other sites. Like with Google, if you have a link on your site, chances are Yahoo will find and list it. The same can be said for Ask Jeeves, Teoma and MSN. With the costs of keeping a billing department running for a paid-inclusion program most have learned they can bypass with very little effort was likely too much for search engines to support. Today, the dominant revenue model is Pay Per Click as offered by Google and Overture.
Article by Jim Hedger, Senior SEO - StepForth Search Engine Placement, Inc. www.stepforth.com - Published Jul. 2004 The Difference between Paid and Organic Listings (Yahoo/Overture, Google Adwords As a business sector, the world of search is changing. Last week I wrote a piece about how Google has less decision making power than users might think as the company finds itself in a business environment that is being molded by factors outside their corporate control. The bottom line in any enterprise, regardless of the social mission associated with that enterprise is survival. In the business world, survival necessitates making money. Saying one needs to make money is a lot easier than actually making that money. Being a leader in any field does not necessarily equate to turning a profit as evidenced by the dead or dying brands Lycos, Alta Vista and Infoseek. Each of these search tools provided their users with good, relevant information but none of them could survive on their own. Each has been gobbled up by a bigger player and eventually killed or put on the "death-watch" list. Over the years, there have been a number of ways search engine businesses have sought to meet the bottom line. One way was through the sale of banner advertising slots. Another is through submission fees to directories such as the $299 Yahoo continues to charge to be listed in their all-but-unused directory. A third method of making money was to distribute search results to other search tools by providing access to the central search database. This method is what made Google the most dominant player in the industry over the past two years and what made Inktomi so interesting to Yahoo last year. There are inherent problems in each of these three revenue generators, the greatest of which is that not one of them can generate enough revenue to keep a search engine company in the black in the current business environment. A feature of the current business environment is the mass acceptance of the Web as a business and social information tool. Much like television became the defining medium of the four decades following WWII, the Internet has become the defining medium of the 90's and 2K's and the growth of the search industry is being driven by advertising. The only tried and true business model for search engines is to treat webmasters as advertisers and somehow charge them for the privilege of a listing. This is being done mainly in three ways, Paid-Placement, Contextual Distribution, and Paid-Inclusion. In the case of Yahoo, a combination of the paid-placement and paid-inclusion is being tested but free listings are still possible to achieve. Paid advertisements are the revenue generators but search engine users continue to prefer the regular, "Organic" listings. Organic Listings are the loss-leaders of the search engine industry. Although all the smaller search tools require payment for inclusion in their databases, both Google and Yahoo continue to provide listings for any website for free. Organic listings are seen below the "Featured or Sponsored sites" and are the results generally clicked on first. While it is very difficult to manipulate these listings, a good SEO can usually get their client's site placed in the Top10 with a concentrated campaign. Repeated surveys of search engine users confirm that Organic listings are the most trusted listings. While search engine users trust these listings, and a good SEO can generally get placement in an advantageous spot, many website owners choose a campaign based on organic listings and paid advertising in order to guarantee they will be found easily and quickly by searchers. Paid-Inclusion is the simplest of the three revenue generators. This term means a webmaster pays the search tool to be included in its database of searched-sites. The most relevant example of a paid-inclusion search tool is Ask Jeeves/Teoma which charges $30 for the first page submitted and $18 for subsequent pages. Paying for inclusion does not guarantee your listing will be ranked well but it does provide extra attention from search-spiders. None of the other remaining MAJOR players have a pure paid-inclusion model though Yahoo's Directory still charges $299 for a review and possible inclusion in the Directory. Very few people actually use Yahoo's Directory for search as Yahoo now has its own search engine. Paid-Placement, (aka: Pay-per-Click), is a bit more difficult to explain as there are several forms of this model in use. There are two programs most people are familiar with, Yahoo's Overture and Google's Adwords. Each program has its unique twist on paid-placement but both work on a basic auction format in which advertisers are invited to bid for clicks from specific keywords or phrases. For instance, every time someone searches the keyword phrase "Search Engine Placement" and clicks the first link, it costs the bidder top bidder $8.01 each time someone clicks their link. The second place bidder is paying $8.00 per click and the third is bidding $7.99. A similar bidding system is used at AdWords though Google adds a number of other factors into deciding which site gets placed where including frequency of click-throughs, maximum daily spend indicated, etc... There are several other paid-placement search tools out there including, Enhance, Find What, Kanoodle, and Brainfox. The real power behind a paid-placement campaign is in the distribution of the advertisement over several other sources. Most paid-placement search tools have distribution deals with other search entities. Viewers can generally see these listings at the top of search engine results pages under headings such as "Sponsored sites" or "Featured sites". This leads into the newest revenue generator for the most aggressive search tools, Contextual Distribution. Contextual Distribution, (aka: Contextual Advertising) is the distribution of paid-ads to other search tools, websites and media outlets based on keywords found in the text of these sources. Google's AdWords/AdSense program is the most successful of the Contextual Distribution models. Through AdSense, webmasters can sign-up with Google to have relevant AdWords advertisements displayed on their sites. The advertisements appear based on keywords and phrases found in the text the ad is placed beside. Hundreds of online newspapers such as the New York Times (subscription required) and Canada's Globe and Mail display Google AdWords advertisements as they would normal print advertisements. Webmasters are given the option of indicating approximately 200 URL's they would not like to see displayed on their websites, allowing for the culling of competitors' advertising. Google AdWords appear at sites such as, AOL, Netscape, Ask Jeeves, The NY Times, Seattle Times, Toronto Star, National Geographic, and literally tens of thousands of other sites. AdWords has just introduced a new feature that allows advertisers to purchase much larger ads, some as large as banners ads. Yahoo's Overture also offers a form of contextual distribution through its Content Match system. Content Match works much the same way AdWords does however the distribution is slightly smaller than Google's. Early in their history, Overture started to corner the distribution market at other major search engines including, Alta Vista, Excite, MSN, Sympatico, and Yahoo but it also provides advertising opportunities at major news outlets such as CNN and Knight Ridder News. It should be noted that most paid-placement programs contain some form of contextual distribution though Google and Yahoo/Overture tend to have the biggest outlets in North America already under their banners. This fact may change in the future as the search engine world is evolving very quickly and most partnerships and alliances are drawn up to cover 12 - 18 month periods. Since the placement of advertisements is factored using an algorithmic formula, sometimes even though a part of the context of the story might fit the advertiser's product, the advertisement may not belong beside that exact story. A morbid example of this happened about a year ago in the NYTimes when the paper ran a story about a series of murders in New York. The murderer hid victims' body parts in suitcases around the city. Beside the story was an advertisement for the world's best known maker of luggage and suitcases. Yahoo SiteMatch Strategies for mixing Paid and Organic Listings It generally takes 4 - 6 weeks to see the full effect of a good SEO campaign in Yahoo and Google's Organic listings. That 4 - 6 weeks is a good time to take advantage of paid-advertising options and the massive distribution they offer. Article by Jim Hedger, Senior SEO, PPC, StepForth Search Engine Placement, Inc. www.stepforth.com - Published Jun. 2004
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