Many of you will have received notice from AltaVistas InfoSpider program stating that Yahoo will no longer be accepting paid-inclusion results from Inktomi. This statement is half-correct in that as of today, April 16, 2004, Yahoo is switching to its own database which has been developed from the Inktomi database. Yahoo recently unveiled a new paid-inclusion program that has a pay-per-click component along with an annual $49(US) review fee. This new pricing policy came into effect at midnight, April 15/16, 2004.
Now, before any panic sets in, please take note of a promise Yahoo made back in March when the new pricing policy was announced. Yahoo will honour all paid-inclusions made through Inktomi previous to April 15, 2004. That means that your sites are NOT about to fall out of the Yahoo/Overture index today but will continue to be spidered and included in the database until such time as your paid-inclusion contract with Inktomi expires.
That said, most webmasters will soon need to make some decisions regarding how much they are willing to pay to be listed at Yahoo and the network of sites that draw from the Yahoo database. The table at this link outlines fees for review / submission along with the estimated cost per click-through based on the industry or sector your business is involved with.
Pay-Per-Click
Pay-per-click rates are charged whenever a person clicks on your link at Yahoo or on one of Yahoos affiliates, AltaVista and AlltheWeb. These fees have been set by Yahoo and will be charged by Yahoos Overture division. We are not certain if these figures are set in stone or if they will change in the future. We are also not certain Yahoo will stick with this policy as there is a lot of opposition to this new pricing structure. The last search tool that introduced a pricing structure similar to this was LookSmart. They faced a webmaster revolt and lost literally millions of advertisers within six months of the introduction. This move contributed to the massive decrease in LookSmarts relevancy over the past year and may have played a role in MSNs decision to move from LookSmart listings to Inktomi (now Yahoo) listings. (there is a mother-lode of irony in them there hills)
Free Submit
Website owners do have a free-submit option with Yahoo however, for commercial websites or for highly competitive sectors we do not recommend relying on free-submit. It is recommended that each page of the site be submitted via free-submit. In order to facilitate that, StepForth will need to charge a specific submission fee as the time taken to properly submit the full site will depend on the size of the site.
The biggest difference will be in the frequency of spider visits to your site. Sites that are submitted to Yahoo via (paid) Site Match will be spidered every 48-hours. Site submitting via free-submit may be spidered once per month. This will present a significant competitive advantage to webmasters whose budgets allow for paid submission and click-through fees as all changes will be seen and recorded much faster for paid sites than non-paid sites.
Site Match XChange
For larger websites, corporate sites, or for sites that contain a lot of dynamic content that changes more than twice per week, another means of submitting up to date information from the site exists. In these cases, the Site Match XChange program may be the best option.
Site Match XChange uses an XML live-feed to constantly send information to the Yahoo database. While there is no annual review fee, costs per click will vary with the specific website. Please contact your StepForth representative for more information or to begin the process of setting up this type of account.
If you have any questions about this client bulletin, please contact Jim Hedger by Email: