PAID INCLUSION

There are various types of paid inclusion programs, but basically, as the name implies, you are paying to have your site included in an engine or directory.

Paid inclusion was developed to address two fundamental challenges of the search engine optimization process: (1) Waiting for engines and directories to crawl the Web, find your site, and index your content, and (2) Making sure that all your content is included. Therefore, with paid inclusion, you're paying to increase the speed and frequency with which your site is indexed, and/or paying to ensure that specific desirable Web pages are included in the indexes.

This approach has caused some controversy, because sites that have paid to be included are indistinguishable from natural (or algorithmic) results. This does not fully comply with the FTC's opinion that paid search listing must be clearly identified.

Also, it's worth noting that at this time Yahoo is the only major search engine offering paid inclusion.

Types of paid inclusion programs include:

• Annual-Fee Directories. Yahoo! charges $299 per year for "express review" of your site. This means your site is reviewed by Yahoo's editors within 7 business days. However, inclusion is the Yahoo! directory is not guaranteed.
• Per-URL Submission. Typically you pay an annual fee per URL submitted. For this fee, the engine's crawler visits the web page on a frequent and regular basis (usually every 48 hours). In addition to the URL submission cost, there is also a cost-per-click charge, based on category.
  This is a good option for pages that change often and need to be kept up to date. It also works well for important pages that are difficult for crawlers to find. You can pay for inclusion, but rank is still determined by the search engine's algorithm.
• XML Feeds. This form of paid inclusion converts a site's content into Extensible Markup Language (XML) format which is fed directly into the search engine database. Cost varies based on engine and industry, but ranges from $0.15 to $0.50 per click. This options works well for sites with hundreds of unique pages such as online retail catalogs or manufacturer databases.