Pay For Position Search Engines
A source of inexpensive, targeted traffic

By Simon Marcantonio


What Is Pay For Position?

Pay for position search engines, also known as pay for rank
or pay per click engines were pioneered just a few years ago
by Goto.com. In the beginning, Goto.com was disregarded by
many Internet experts confident that webmasters would not
choose to pay for a search engine position. At that time,
this assumption was valid, given that most popular search
engines accepted new sites into their listings free of
charge.

Several years later and the Internet is a radically
different place. Many big player search engines are
struggling to break-even financially, their listings are
populated with spam which over time has led to many worthy
websites having to accept low rankings or even being banned
for using one too many keywords on the wrong page.


Goto.com

The Goto.com principle is simple - you pay to be listed.
To many webmasters at first glance this seems a terrible
proposition, however after further investigation Goto.com
clients discover a flexible system that gives them far more
control over their listings than was previously achievable.

To be listed at Goto you need to create an account, you
deposit an amount of your choosing (there is usually a
minimum of $25) and create your listings. Listings
consists of titles, descriptions, a web site address,
keywords and most importantly a bid amount. The bid amount
is the amount of money that will be deducted from your
account when a searcher at Goto clicks on your listing.

The amount you bid is usually determined by the amounts
other webmasters are bidding for your keyword. So, if the
number one bid for the 'health' keyword is $0.90 then you
would need to bid $0.91 to become top. You could also bid
$0.89 and therefore be listed in second place.


Competition For Goto

The success of Goto.com is a problem for webmasters with a
smaller advertising budget. The bid amount for the health
keyword above is just an example. In reality, popular
keywords on Goto.com can fetch as much as $3 or $4 for the
top spot. Enter the competition. Newer pay for position
search engines such as Kanoodle and FindWhat have less
traffic than Goto but at the same time the cost of achieving
a top listing is within the reach of many webmasters. The
cost of being listed within the top 5 positions can be
reached by almost anyone.


Regional - A New Marketplace

New, regional pay for position search engines are emerging.
Currently the United Kingdom with its large base of online
users has the most choice with some regional engines offering
to list national and international sites. The regional search
engines are allowing international entrepreneurs access to
markets that were previously difficult to reach - giving a
new lease of life to affiliate programs, content sites and
other web services.


Getting The Most From Pay For Position Search Engines

For the business owner with a very large advertising budget,
Goto.com may be the only search engine you need to be listed
with. Results from Goto now partially power sites such as
AltaVista and an array of metasearch engines. However, if
your budget is more modest then the widely accepted solution
is to list on as many pay for position search engines as
possible, and to place low bids for as many keywords as
possible. As with all vibrant markets increased competition
is providing an increasing choice for the Internet business
owner.


Client Interfaces

All of the top pay for position engines provides dedicated
web interfaces so that clients can control their listings
easily. These interfaces are available 24 hours a day,
seven days a week allowing fast updates to titles,
descriptions and bid amounts as well as allowing clients to
add new sites as necessary.

Client interfaces will be familiar to those who have ever
placed a banner ad with sites such as LinkExchange, except
that instead of dealing with banners, pay for position
interfaces control the details of search engine text links.

Most pay for position engines allow the creation of client
accounts before a payment is required - giving you the
opportunity to evaluate the ease of use of each particular
system.


Changing Times

As with most situations, the actions of a few can have far
reaching effects on many innocent parties. In the search
engine world, thousands of spammers have forced the big
search engines into implementing strict listing policies,
often at the expense of legitimate websites seeking a decent
search engine ranking. Pay for position is helping to level
the field, most spammers will not pay for a listing, as a
consequence pay for position search engines are populated by
legitimate businesses and entrepreneurs seeking to advertise
to their desired market.

With a pay for position search engine there is no longer any
need to compete with spammers and homepages for top rankings.

The new rules are:
YOU choose your title
YOU choose your description
YOU choose where you are ranked

It's a simple philosophy prevalent in the offline business
world - and one that is now available to online businesses.


More information can be found at:
http://www.goto.com
http://www.kanoodle.com
http://www.findwhat.com
http://www.uksprite.com
http://www.payperclicksearchengines.com


copyright (c)2001 Verita Ltd

------------------------------------------------------------------
Simon Marcantonio is a founder of UKSprite.com - a pay for
position search engine based in the United Kingdom. UKsprite.com
is helping both British and International businesses find new
customers and clients for their websites, products, services and
affiliate programs.
http://www.UKSprite.com