The News this Month!

1. Yahoo stays with Google?

September has started and there has been no official announcement (as yet) to the status of the agreement between Yahoo and Google, for Google to be the back-up results supplier to all the worldwide Yahoos.

However, certain subtle changes have occurred at Yahoo's US site which lead us to believe that the Yahoo/Google partnership is going to continue. Changes include:

a) The Google logo and link on the web pages section is no longer appearing - being replaced with a text message indicating that some results are powered by Google.

b) Results in the web pages section which have corresponding directory entries appearing without the Google title and description 'snippet' to be replaced by the appropriate Yahoo listing - with a link to the Yahoo category which that site appears in.

This would appear to give Yahoo some major benefits. The branding that Google gained from displaying their logo on a large proportion of Yahoo searches certainly must have had an impact on Google's growth. This will lessen - plus the ability for searchers to see which sites are considered as important enough to appear in Yahoo's directory should enhance the number of people wanting to appear in Yahoo. Of course, the link to the category showing similar sites, should bring additional Yahoo traffic as well.

Like all things in the world of search engine marketing - Yahoo could prove that we are totally on the wrong track tomorrow. But the signs look good for Google - and not so good for Inktomi and FAST who were also rumoured to be on the inside track!

For further details on how to submit to directories such as Yahoo see our free Search Engine Optimisation Guide.

2. AltaVista drops use of Keyword tag.

The poor meta keyword tag has finally been disregarded by AltaVista. For some time AV has been downgrading pages which used terms in the keyword tag which were not on the actual page, but they have now decided to join the majority of search engines and ignore this severely abused tag completely. This leaves only Inktomi putting any weight at all on keyword tags - the other SEs pretty much ignore them completely.

So, any company which suggests they can get you to the top of the search engines by purely 'adjusting your meta tags' is probably not going to get you very far!

3. Lycos UK shuffles Results!

Within the last month results at Lycos UK have changed radically. First of all, the site has had a new design which makes it much clearer to use - apart from when you get to the results! Previously, searchers got sites which were either based in the UK and Ireland through the Lycos UK directory or through standard FAST/AllTheWeb results which were filtered to show UK and Irish sites as the default. Options were then available to search on worldwide and other results.

Even though the site still says they are showing UK and Ireland results, they are actually now showing sites from around the World and the directory listings which used to appear are no longer shown! This makes the recent move by Lycos to have a paid inclusion program for their directory seem a little silly. Although the sites still appear in their directory, few people drill through categories to find sites. On sites we monitor, referrals fell by 99% on sites which were in the directory listings as soon as they no longer appeared within the main results. As a result we are no longer paying Lycos for a site review, however, if they do re-adjust their results we will resume!

4. Telesales SEO operations!

Earlier this year, Real Names - which was a facility by which you could buy certain search terms which when typed into Internet Explorer would route the person to the site owning that search term - had their agreement with Microsoft terminated. As such, Real Names closed down. However, a myriad of other companies have appeared offering deals which seem pretty similar - either offering search terms for sale which will route you to your site if someone types it into their browser or offering the top positions on certain search engines which they 'own'.

What they forget to tell you is that:

a) if it is routed to your site by using a browser - surfers have to download a special patch to their browser to get it to work. Now, how many are going to do that? This method of driving traffic didn't really work even when this was a facility already in Internet Explorer and no download was needed. Will it work when surfers have to find a site which then asks them to download something to show them adverts? I don't think so!

b) if they are offering top positions which they 'own' or 'have available' they usually add they have a 'special relationship' with either the search engines or the provider of sponsored results on search engines. We have yet to find a single case where this has been true - but we stand to be corrected if there is any company which does have a 'special deal'.

Some of the prices being charged are excessive. Traffic figures are inflated and businesses are bullied into taking the words 'before your competitor does'.

Don't be taken in! Check the facts - and if a special deal is being offered - check who with, then e-mail the search engine concerned and ask if it is true. Alternatively, ask on forums where the experts hang-out like IhelpYouServices and Search Engine Forums (or here at the MakeMeTop SE Forum). They will tell you what is likely to be the true facts - not the fiction that some of these operators are spinning!

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 - now part of LookSmart UK.
• 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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