By Mel Strocen (c) 2005
Part 1 of this article looked at ExactSeek's free site listing
options and do-it-yourself tools that enable webmasters to
maximize website visibility and improve site ranking without ExactSeek input. Part 2 examines ExactSeek's new paid inclusion
(PI) program and and how it stacks up against pay-per-click (PPC)
offerings and the once popular paid inclusion programs that were
available through Inktomi and other search engines.
Search Revenue - The Paid Inclusion and PPC Models
The popularity of a search engine may be primarily related to
the quality of the search results it delivers, but the driving
force behind search engine innovation is revenue. At this point in time, most search engines and directories derive the bulk of
their revenue from pay-per-click, and/or paid inclusion
listings.
Pay-Per-Click Programs
By now most webmasters and site owners are familiar with
the pay-per-click concept. In brief, anyone can place a per
click bid on a keyword term related to the products, services
or content offered on his/her website and then sit back to watch the traffic roll in.
Advantages
1. Fast Results - ad campaigns can be kicked off within hours.
2. Targeted Traffic - with proper keyword research, advertisers
can be assured of receiving visitors who are actually
interested in their offerings.
3. Ranking Control - site listing position in a PPC engine's
search results can be determined by bidding high or low.
Disadvantages
1. Cost - PPC advertising is becoming increasingly expensive as
advertisers compete for the most favorable keyword terms.
2. Click Fraud - a growing problem that is quickly tarnishing
the PPC concept and costing advertisers big dollars for bogus
results. Some estimates put click fraud as high as 20%.
3. Constant Monitoring - advertisers are forced to constantly
monitor keyword bids, results and listing position to ensure
they are not being supplanted by competitors or gouged by the
engines they contracted with.
Paid Inclusion Programs
The paid inclusion model predates pay-per-click and at one
time was fairly popular and offered by Inktomi, Ask Jeeves,
Yahoo! and other engines. In general, a one time annual payment guaranteed an advertiser quick site inclusion into a major search engine's database and the promise of frequent site indexing.
The major drawback with paid inclusion was that advertisers
received little more for their money than those who were
lucky enough to be included in a search engine's results for
free. Paid inclusion simply failed to address the advertiser
need for premium site positioning. The old saw of "you get what
you pay for" didn't apply and as a result paid inclusion has
slowly but steadily lost ground to pay-per-click and today is
an option found at very few search engines and only a small
number of web directories.
The slow death of paid inclusion is unfortunate because, if
implemented and presented properly, paid inclusion offers far more to advertisers than pay-per-click. The most significant advantage is a fixed cost. The key, of course, is in the
implementation and here one has to wonder if the major engines
have just missed the boat or moved away from paid inclusion
because there is far more money to be made with pay-per-click.
ExactSeek's Hybrid Paid Inclusion Program
The ExactSeek PI program grew out of a belief that the Web didn't need another PPC engine and that the PPC model, like so many advertising concepts before it, would gradually
be abandoned as advertisers tired of spiralling costs and
rampant click fraud.
Exactseek examined the pros and cons of PPC and PI advertising and then tried to address the problems in an innovative and
unique way. The result was a program that took the best aspects
of the PPC and PI concepts and melded them into a hybrid PI
model that in many ways is similar to the Google Adwords
program without the pay-per-click component.
Advertisers are able to purchase keyword terms (words or
phrases) for a period of 3 or 12 months at a fixed, one-time
fee. Whenever vistors search a purchased keyword term, the advertiser's ad which consists of a URL, short Title (30
characters) and Description (100 characters), is shown as an
ad box in the right column of ExactSeek's search results.
The sale of any keyword term is restricted to a maximum of 30
buys. Since the number of paid listing ad boxes that can appear
on any search results page is limited to 10, all advertisers
are assured of exposure on the first 3 pages of search results.
To further ensure exposure equality, paid listings are rotated
with every search within a search results page as well as
between search result pages. Assuming a keyword term was sold
out, any paid listing for that keyword term would appear on the
first page of search results on average once in every 3 searches
of that term. This would be a worst case scenario for an
advertiser. However, a buyer of a keyword term that had been
sold 10 or fewer times would see his/her paid listing always
appear on the first page of search results.
This hybrid model puts the webmaster/site owner/advertiser first
and search engine revenues second, since the number of times a
keyword term can be sold is restricted, bidding for listing
position is unnecessary, and there is no additional revenue to
be made from listing generated clicks.
In addition to receiving top 10 exposure, advertisers in the
ExactSeek PI program also benefit in other ways. A complete list
of the benefits is provided at:
http://www.exactseek.com/featured_listings.html
In brief, however, some of those benefits include:
1. Low, Fixed Cost: Advertisers pay a one-time, flat fee,
starting at $12 per listing, and dropping on volume buys.
2. Quick Inclusion: 6 to 8 hours.
3. Variable Listing Duration: 3 or 12 month terms.
4. Member Account: Advertisers have access to a member interface
where they can monitor click-thru and search impression stats
and edit their listings at anytime.
5. Exposure: Top 10 exposure across the ExactSeek search engine
partner network of 45+ search engines as well as exposure in
the ExactSeek search partner distribution network.
Currently, ExactSeek PI listings are displayed more than 120
million times per month and that number is expected to grow
over the next few months as additional search engines and directories join the network. Interest has been so high in fact that the network has been soun off as a separate entity called the Independent Search Engine & Directory Network
(ISEDN) with its own website at: http://www.isedn.org .
Although all members in the ISEDN will carry ExactSeek paid inclusion listings, the ISEDN's primary objective is to provide affordable and effective search engine marketing to any website unable, or unwilling, to support the rising costs of
PPC or to devote the necessary time and resources to search engine optimization (SEO). Secondary goals for the ISEDN have
yet to be determined, but areas currently under discussion
include the possibility of contributions in the area of open source search software development and search relevance.
Whether or not ExactSeek and the ISEDN have a significant impact on the search industry as a whole remains to be seen. At minimum, the membership hopes to slow the trend to the gradual monopolization of search on the Web and to offer searchers and site owners additional search and advertising options.
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Mel Strocen is CEO of the Jayde Online Network of websites. The
Jayde network currently consists of 20 websites, including
ExactSeek.com (http://www.exactseek.com) and SiteProNews.com
(http://www.sitepronews.com), SEO-News.com (http://seo-news.com), GoArticles.com (http://www.goarticles.com) and Blog-