Pay-to-Include Search & Directories: Worth the money?
Web-Kare
has always had a very simple policy regarding "pay-to-include"
search engines and directories. We pay for search engines or
directories that have proven that inclusion in them will improve
rankings at the major search engines. At the time of this writing,
the "major" search engines are Google, Yahoo and MSN.
Also, at
the time of this writing, there are no programs that we
would even consider paying for inclusion. We have
not advocated, nor paid for inclusion at Yahoo's directory at
$299/year since they changed to the annual fee. We have not
seen an improvement in sites listed in that directory previous
to the new pricing policy and have heard many others say that
being included has had little or no effect on their site's rankings.
We used
to pay for inclusion at Ask Jeeves, but did not see enough return
on the investment to renew our listings with them. Allowing
our listings to expire at Ask Jeeves has had no impact on overall
rankings for our clients' sites.
We do however,
on rare occasion, suggest that our clients consider paid inclusion
in some very specific online directories. These directories
are not expected to bring tons of traffic to our clients' sites,
but inclusion has either proven to boost rankings at Google
or traffic that comes from these other sites are so extremely
targeted they have a high probability of becoming a sale. These
are typically so specific to an industry, that it is worth our
clients' sites being included simply for the quality of traffic
even if it does not boost rankings. (Note that I said "on
rare occasion" -- there are not a lot of directories that
are worth the money to be included. Some directories start at
thousands of dollars per year, others a mere $50 one-time. The
return on investment is always foremost in our decision process.)
Web-kare
does, however, submit our clients' sites to as many free online
directories and search engines as possible providing they are
not "blacklisted." Blacklisted means that the search
engine or directory is considered a "SPAM" or a "Link
Farm" by one or more of the big three instead of a quality
directory. While it is not always possible to determine the
status of any search engine or directory, we make every effort
to avoid these poor quality search vehicles because getting
a link in them can penalize rankings at some search engines,
particularly Google.
Sometimes
our clients question why we might post their site to an international
search engine, particularly if they do not service an international
market. The point is not to build site traffic from the obscure
international search vehicle, but instead to raise the link
popularity of the site. An international search engine experiences
traffic from more than the one country or continent that it
appears to service. In fact, we avoid international search engines
that limit their exposure to only one geographical area. Sometimes
a client may feel that he does not service an international
market simply because he does not consider Canada international
or he may have forgotten that many U.S. companies have offices
overseas.
In the US
market more than 90% of search is conducted at one of the three
major search engines: Yahoo, Google and MSN. All three of these
search engines have international coverage as well. If you submit
your site to Yahoo, don't be surprised to see it appear at yahoo.hk. Thus a good link popularity abroad should equate
to a better link popularity score within the US also.
Of course,
no landscape changes faster than that of the Internet. Today's
search hero's can quickly get tossed aside and replaced by the
next new and better search. That's why Internet marketing companies
like Web-Kare are constantly keeping their eyes on the Web and
researching new search products.
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