Paid Inclusion vs. Free

Do you really need to pay to play?

The nice thing about the majority of search engines is that you don't have to pay to play. Of course paying for search engine inclusion has it's benefits, your budget usually has the deciding factor.

Spider-based search engines such as Google and Inktomi will find you on there own, and on their own terms. On the other hand Overture paid listings let you actively compete for competitive keywords that give you total control over where your ad's will be placed and for the price you decide upon.

Google Inclusion

Google states that it will find your web page regardless if you do not submit to them (they only offer free submission) but it can't hurt to try to speed things up.

Click here to submit your URL to Google for FREE
Learn more about the Googlebot Search Engine Spider

Inktomi Inclusion

Inktomi on the other hand in addition to find your site for free offers a paid inclusion program. There are various companies who will submit your URL or as many web pages as you like for a fee. the cost generally runs around $39.00 for the first URL and $25.00 for each additional URL up to 1,000 pages. You can see how this can get expensive. If your web site contains more than 1,000 pages consider Inktomi's Index-Connect.

The benefits with paid inclusion are great if your budget allows for it, even if you only submit a few targeted pages.

Benefits of paid inclusion are:

Your web page submission guarantees that subscribed pages are in the Inktomi database for 12 months. Within 72 hours of joining, your web pages will begin appearing on leading search engines such as MSN, HotBot, Overture, About.com, and Excite.

Detailed Click-Thru and Keyword Reports updated every 24 hours. You'll receive fresh data about how many clicks your pages are receiving, what keywords people are finding you for, and how your pages are ranking.

No need to resubmit. Inktomi will re-crawl your subscribed web pages every 48 hours, reflecting any changes you make to your web pages very quickly. The impact from any changes can be seen within days rather than months.

Disadvantages:

Chances are that once your subscription is up, so are your rankings. The benefits are high especially being able to see changes make to pages every 48 hours. Just don't expect those great rankings to stay where they are if you opt out of your subscription. You either continue to pay for your optimized web pages or see just really how good those web pages have been optimized.

Overture Paid Listings

If you immediately want to see your url and keyword description in the search engines Overture advertising solutions are for you. Overture's "Pay For Performance" search engine listings let you control your position by the amount you bid on keywords.

Reach over 80% of active Internet users with Overture Search Advertising. Sign up and get a $10 credit.

Overture allows you to be seen in Yahoo, MSN, Altavista and more showcasing your web site to people already searching for what you provide.

	Writing Good Directory Submissions Cold Fusion Web Hosting Pay Per Click Reports	Download PHP Scripts Froogle Shopping Search