The Internet contains numerous search engines,
some of which offer what is known as "paid inclusion."
This means that you pay the specific search engine an annual fee
for your web page to be included in their index.
Of course, every search engine already has an
automated program commonly called a "spider" that
indexes all the web pages it locates online, and it does this
for free. So whether you pay or not, your web page will
eventually be indexed by all Internet search engines, as long as
the spider can follow a link to your page. The major issue is,
then, how quickly your page is indexed.
A search engine that offers a paid URL inclusion
uses an extra spider that is programmed to index the particular
pages that have been paid for. The difference between the spider
that indexes pages for free and the spider that indexes only
pages for a fee is speed. If you have paid for inclusion, the
additional search engine spider will index your page
immediately.
The debate over paid URL inclusion centers
around the annual fee. Since the regular spider of these search
engines would eventually get around to indexing your web page
anyway, why is a renewal fee necessary? The fee is necessary to
keep your pages in the search engine's index. If you go the
route of paid inclusion, you should be aware that at the end of
the pay period, on some search engines, your page will be
removed from their index for a certain amount of time.
It's easy to get confused about whether you
would benefit from paid inclusion since the spider of any search
engine will eventually index your page without the additional
cost. There are both advantages and disadvantages to paid URL
inclusion, and it is only by weighing your pros and cons that
you will be able to decide whether to spring for the extra cash
or not.
The advantages are obvious: rapid inclusion and
rapid re-indexing. Paid inclusion means that your pages will be
indexed quickly and added to search results in a very short time
after you have paid the fee. The time difference between when
the regular spider will index your pages and when the paid
spider will is a matter of months. The spider for paid inclusion
usually indexes your pages in a day or two. Be aware that if you
have no incoming links to your pages, the regular spider will
never locate them at all.
Additionally, paid inclusion spiders will go
back to your pages often, sometimes even daily. The advantage of
this is that you can update your pages constantly to improve the
ranking in which they appear in search engines, and the paid URL
inclusion spider will show that result in a matter of days.
First and foremost, the disadvantage is the
cost. For a ten page website, the costs of paid URL inclusion
range from $170 for Fast/Lycos to $600 for Altavista, and you
have to pay each engine their annual fee. How relevant the cost
factor is will depend on your company.
Another, and perhaps more important,
disadvantage is the limited reach of paid URL inclusions. The
largest search engines, Google, Yahoo, and AOL, do not offer
paid URL inclusion. That means that the search engines you
choose to pay an inclusion fee will amount to a small fraction
of the traffic to your site on a daily basis.
Google usually updates its index every month,
and there is no way you can speed up this process. You will have
to wait for the Google spider to index your new pages no matter
how many other search engines you have paid to update their
index daily. Be aware that it is only after Google updates their
index that your pages will show up in Google, Yahoo, or AOL
results.
One way to figure out whether paid URL inclusion
is a good deal for your company is to consider some common
factors. First, find out if search engines have already indexed
your pages. To do this, you may have to enter a number of
different keywords, but the quickest way to find out is to enter
your URL address in quotes. If your pages appear when you enter
the URL address but do not appear when you enter keywords, using
paid inclusion will not be beneficial. This is because your
pages have already been indexed and ranked by the regular
spider. If this is the case, your money would be better spent by
updating your pages to improve your ranking in search results.
Once you accomplish this, you can then consider using paid
inclusion if you want to speed up the time it will take for the
regular spider to revisit your pages.
The most important factor in deciding whether to
use paid URL inclusion is to decide if it's a good investment.
To figure this out, you have to look at the overall picture:
what kind of product or service are you selling and how much
traffic are you dependent on to see a profit?
If your company sells an inexpensive product
that requires a large volume of traffic to your site, paid
inclusion may not be the best investment for you; the biggest
search engines do not offer it, and they are the engines that
will bring you the majority of hits. On the other hand, if you
have a business that offers an expensive service or product and
requires a certain quality of traffic to your site, a paid URL
inclusion is most likely an excellent investment.
Another factor is whether or not your pages are
updated frequently. If the content changes on a daily or weekly
basis, paid inclusion will insure that your new pages are
indexed often and quickly. The new content is indexed by the
paid spider and then appears when new relevant keywords are
entered in the search engines. Using paid inclusion in this case
will guarantee that your pages are being indexed in a timely
manner.
You should also base your decision on whether or
not your pages are dynamically generated. These types of pages
are often difficult for regular spiders to locate and index.
Paying to include the most important pages of a dynamically
generated website will insure that the paid spider will index
them.
Sometimes a regular spider will drop pages from
its search engine, although these pages usually reappear in a
few months. There are a number of reasons why this can happen,
but by using paid URL inclusion, you will avoid the possibility.
Paid URL inclusion guarantees that your pages are indexed, and
if they are inadvertently dropped, the search engine will be on
the lookout to locate them immediately.
As you can see, there are numerous factors to
consider when it comes to paid URL inclusion. It can be a
valuable investment depending on your situation. Evaluate your
business needs and your website to determine if paid URL
inclusion is a wise investment for your business goals.
Michael Rasmussen is a successful Internet Marketing Consultant
and author of many top-selling eBooks. Michael has been
marketing online since the early days and he knows what it takes
to make money and succeed online. Stop by his Web site and
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