The News this Month!

1. LookSmart Saga Continues!

LookSmart US is still getting short-shrift from search engine marketing companies around the World for the change to their pay per click plan. Complaints have been voiced on many of the main Webmaster channels such as Search Engine Forums, WebMaster World and I Help You Forums that the clicks-throughs have been hard to trace and appear to be from listings which are powered by other search engines (such as Inktomi) where the client may also have paid for inclusion - so they are in effect, being charged twice or three times for the same listing! To add to the concerns, 3 of the main board members of LookSmart US have resigned and their CEO has also been moved to the position of Chairman (and relocating back to Australia) with a new CEO taking over in the next few months.

With all this confusion, we have stopped using LookSmart US as part of our strategies and are recommending that clients look very carefully at using their services. However, we are still using LookSmart UK who (very sensibly, in our opinion) have not followed the same business plan!

2. Google Powers AOL UK.

In a surprise move, 2 months ago, AOL decided not to renew its' contract with Inktomi as a supplier of search engine results. It was not known if this would just be US policy as, in the UK for example, sponsored listings are provided by Overture UK. However, in the middle of June, AOL UK switched to providing results from Google. The main differences between the way that Google and AOL show results are:

• AOL UK does not show the description which Google shows when the site is listed in the Open Directory. This is surprising as AOL owns the ODP!
• UK only sites just show .co.uk etc sites - there are no .com sites on AOL if the UK filter is chosen. This is different to Google UK which looks to see if a .com is hosted in the UK or abroad. If in the UK, it is listed.

It is expected that the move to Google on the rest of AOL will happen shortly - and certainly will occur before September when the Inktomi contract finishes.

3. New Search Engine Optimisation and Marketing Directory Launched.

June saw the launch of a major new directory listing details of search engine optimisation and marketing specialists throughout the World. There are two major differences and benefits with this directory (SEOConsultants.com). 

• It is completely free to use!
• It does a rigorous check on all applicants to see if they are capable (in the directory owners' opinion) of doing a professional job for potential clients. Currently (2nd July) - only 127 SEO professionals have been approved as meeting the criteria (including ourselves) while a staggering 158 have been declined.

As the search engine optimisation and marketing industry grows, it has become more important for people who are going to entrust their web site promotion to another company or individual to have an impartial source of information which lists those SEO professionals who are viewed by others to have a decent reputation.

Other directories include:

SEOPros.org (free), Marketing Sherpa Report (paid) and (soon to be launched by Internet.com) SEMList.com.

4. Yahoo.com shows Overture UK results to UK Surfers!

Yahoo's recently signed 3 year agreement to show Overture results on Yahoo.com as sponsored listings, has just started to show in the UK. As of the last week in June, Yahoo.com shows 5 results from Overture UK on their first page - 3 at the top, above the main listings - and 2 at the bottom of the page. These are only visible if you are a surfer using a UK provider. Surfers with a US provider will continue to see Overture US results and surfers outside of these areas will not see any sponsored listings. This does NOT affect the status of Yahoo UK which has a continuing agreement with Espotting.

5. Which search engines cost what?

With fees changing every month, we are keeping this list updated regularly - so users can see what the latest costs are. As always, not a lot of free submissions out there so don't get taken in by the ever growing list of people offering mass-submissions. They just don't work for any of the main search facilities that drive real traffic.

Here are the main search facilities and the basic costs for faster review/inclusion. You can get discounts for more URLs.

• Yahoo US! - $299 for business and commercial sites (review only and then annual inclusion fee). Top listings available via Overture (US only) and Overture UK (UK only). Only use Yahoo US submission if you can't get in through Yahoo UK!
• Yahoo UK! - £199 for business and commercial sites (review one-off, non-recurring fee). Top listings available via Espotting.
• Inktomi - it powers some or all of the results on AOL US, MSN, iWon, LookSmart, About, Sprinks, Overture, HotBot, Overture UK, Espotting and most UK portals. Costs from $39 per page per year!
• Google - still free - though you can get paid listings via AdWords or AdWords Select if you want to appear in less than 2-3 months! Powers results on Freeserve, AOL UK and BT LookSmart network backup results in the UK.
• ODP - completely free.
• LookSmart - feeds results to AltaVista, Excite (note: Excite is now a meta-engine - not a search engine in its' own right) MSN, iWon, CNN, Time Warner and another 370 ISPs. $49 (plus $150 deposit) then 15 cents per referral and (if you want to appear in the UK) £149 for LS UK. Description changes cost extra. LookSmart UK has just launched their own PPC system to compete with Overture and Espotting called BidSmart.
• AltaVista - still used by a significant number of users from $60 per page per year. Can get to the top by paying Overture. LookSmart for directory.
• FAST - provides results to a number of European searches as well as the widely used Lycos engines now $12 per URL per year.
• MSN - LookSmart for Directory and Overture for top listings plus Inktomi which uses paid inclusion.
• UKPlus - a £99 fee to get reviewed in a reasonable time-frame.
• Overture - provides featured results to many meta-engines, plus AltaVista, Excite, HotBot (US), Lycos (US), MSN and Netscape - plus many other search portals. Pay for placement. Minimum fee £25
• Teoma - powers Ask Jeeves US plus Ask Jeeves UK and is now starting to be sold as an alternative engine database (like Google and Inktomi) - $25.00 per page.

It will become harder and harder to get a free listing if you are a business - but make sure, before you pay the engines, that you understand what you are doing to make sure your pages/site appear high up in the listings! These payments specify rapid inclusion - not high rankings. The site/pages still need to be optimised.

If you have any further questions about the major search engines - why not ask your questions about this or many other subjects on our free information forums?

We also have many resources which are designed to make your optimisation tasks easier. As always, MakeMeTop is here to help get you seen on the web. If you have any queries, comments or feedback on the information contained in this report, please let us know. It must be stated that all comments and ideas listed in this document come from the editor's research and are solely his opinions! For more information and tips on getting top search engine rankings visit Search Engine World, Pandia and Search Engine Watch or read our tips on designing a search engine friendly page. See other news, views and search engine happenings at sites we find useful at Webmaster World, Pandia, Search Engine Watch and Ihelpyou Forums. A free weekly newsletter is available from High Rankings Advisor and is also well worth the read.

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