Site Match Officially Launched - SES Day 2 - Page 2

ashelley · #51 (**permalink**) 03-11-2004, 04:04 PM

First Google manipulates their algorithms that we must all rely on ADWORDS / PPC for traffic in their engine and now Yahoo with Site Match. In stepping back and surveying the situation, it seems to me the Yahoo changes are little more than manifest destiny.
To survive in ANY marketplace, one of two things must be done well: Create trends or play catch-up and follow them. The former is preferred but, often, the latter will suffice. I suspect Yahoo's answer to Google will be countered with something and so on and so on, ad nauseam.
These two Goliath's will continue to battle it out and the rest of us will have to wait and see what happens next.
Interestingly, Yahoo and Google are not competing with one another for OUR business; presently, it seems they have our advertising dollars at almost ANY cost. They are merely climbing all over one another to get to the lion's share of the profits.
The Apocalyptic View: Inevitably, small businesses will lack the capital to stay in the game and only a few major players will remain standing. Hmmm. Historically speaking, this prediction is not far fetched. You need only look as far as the topic of this discussion to see how this principal applies.
So tonight, while cradling my "Bill Gates Action Figure" close to my breast, I will drift off to sleep chanting "Go Capitalism! But please take me with you..."

deltatrend · #52 (**permalink**) 03-11-2004, 04:08 PM

It is really great that Yahoo! took the time to lay out their argumentation. It is clear, but not compelling for my clients.

I used to submit to Inktomi through Positiontech for another company. One of my clients with a redesigned site asked me yesterday about the cost of getting updated in Yahoo! quicker, so I took a look.

The $49/$29 fee would have been acceptable for him, but this idea of $0.30 per click just destroys the economics. He has a relocation company in a country, and there aren't many competitors. I had to advise him to keep his head down and just wait it out.

For most of my clients it's the same. Basically, they just want a one-time site-refresh in the index. Some sites have not been re-indexed for many weeks. I suspect that this is a very common problem.

Obviously Yahoo's program is targeted at a different type of site, but it's too bad there isn't another program for these types of sites. Money left on the table, in my opinion.

bvi · #53 (**permalink**) 03-11-2004, 04:08 PM

"I have read about this free spidering by Yahoo in the posts but I have yet to see it. Is there a place to submit your url to these sites."

I don't believe you need to "do" anything to get the Yahoo Slurp! to visit your site. Just wait, same as Google.

cbp · #54 (**permalink**) 03-11-2004, 04:40 PM

A lot of people posting in this thread need to go back and get their facts right before making comment and helping spreading myths.

CBP

deltatrend · #55 (**permalink**) 03-11-2004, 04:52 PM

Being less charitable now. The arguementation from many, including Yahoo!, is "If Site Match does not meet your needs, just wait for slurp". However, the evidence contradicts this.

Running searches in my industry, I see pages that were changed a long time ago. I can even view the cached pages of a site that I know was taken down around November.

I am not sure what conclusions to draw from this.

hittjett · #56 (**permalink**) 03-11-2004, 05:58 PM

It seems clear to me that the game at present is to scare you into paying Yahoo for a listing. I was dropped overnight to ranking mostly in the 30s in a very small market. Many of the sites that are ranked ahead of me are old abandoned sites that break all of the SEO rules. None is as well designed or provides as much information as my site.

This is the period when Yahoo scares the money out of you. Just wait. They will change their tactics soon, or they will cease to be a player, in which case we can all cheer their demise.

cbp · #57 (**permalink**) 03-11-2004, 06:04 PM

Paying for inclusion vis SiteMatch will not affect your ranking.

CBP

vintagedge · #58 (**permalink**) 03-11-2004, 06:37 PM

I agree with cbp. Some people need to get their facts straight. Maybe some should go back and read the post by YahooSearch. Take it right from the horses mouth.

Quote:

Today 99% of the information in the index comes from the free crawl.

Also, if your want to submit your site for free YahooSearch has posted:

Quote:

Furthermore, we now offer a free Add URL service (http://submit.search.yahoo.com).

So, go submit and give Yahoo a few weeks to show us what they can do. I for one find it a refreshing change from Google, Florida and Brandy.

Karen
http://www.vintagedge.com

Conficio · #59 (**permalink**) 03-11-2004, 06:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by YahooSearch

Both content providers and search users benefit from greater interaction between sites and the search engine. In fact, for several years a good number of message board posters have been asking for greater clarity from search engines about how to participate and what the “rules” are.

Fine, I'm still heavily confused. Are results ranked by preference for SiteMatch or not? Are SiteMatch sites = sponsored sites and clearly marked, or do they simply bubble up in the ranks of "generic search results"?

Quote:

Originally Posted by YahooSearch

Yahoo! believes that Site Match delivers:
1. Higher quality search results for users, including reducing the amount of search spam (spammers are economically disincented to participate)
2. A clearer, more consistent way to interact with Yahoo! Search for content providers who historically have been subjected to unpredictable changes in the way their content has been discovered and presented by search engines.

To 1. - Search quality is defined by the user, not yahoo or the owner of a web-site. So as long as yahoo manipulates the ranking of entries by how much money people pay or how much they can earn from the click through (which is, on the bottom line of the site owner, the same), the quality sucks. Because as someone seeking information, I'm not looking for the one that can make the largest profit (= can stomach the largest advertising costs) from providing it to me. The quality of the information I'm seeking is different from that.
To 2. - That looks like a reasonable service I'd be willing to pay an annual fee for . May be even a fee per URL submitted, but why would I pay per click through? In what way are the clicks correlated with the service?

Quote:

Originally Posted by YahooSearch

- Sites that have harder to find content or with information that can’t currently be crawled by any search engine (e.g. sites with dynamic content, such as extensive product catalogs)

In clear speak, because I'm not able to automate my site index page(s), I need to pay yahoo on a per click basis? Come on!

Quote:

Originally Posted by YahooSearch

Q: What if I can't afford this program? Will you have a lower priced program in the future?
A: If your primary goal is to get your site indexed and if your web site has not already been crawled by Yahoo! Search, it is possible it will be crawled in the future. As of March 1, 2004, 99% of all content in our index has been discovered via our free crawl,...

Yes, what if I can't afford the program. YahooSearch, you did not answer the question. what happens if my set daily/monthly limit is exceeded. How does it influence my position in the search results? Can you give me a detailed example, what will happen?
By the way, I don't care if 99% free crawled sites are on page 10 - 10,000! As a user I'm fed the advertisers (= bad quality) and as a site owner, I'm off the radar screen for 99.99% of all users.

Quote:

Originally Posted by YahooSearch

Q. Will Yahoo! Search results sacrifice quality by favoring sites that pay for the Site Match program?
A. Absolutely not...

What is the difference in the search results, if I'm crawled by the free crawler, as opposed to the SiteMatch crawler. Are you telling me, that I end up on page 277 of the search results, because my keywords don't match my content and there are little incoming links (= poor search engine relevance). And Yahoo misses out on the chance to earn a buck, if someone clicks on my entry? I thought you are in business and conventional wisdom has it, in business you try to earn money. So you'd need to prove to me that this is the truth now and every day that goes by, before I'm convinced. How arre you going to do this?

Sorry YahooSearch, I have more questions than answers. Sorry for the rant, but I'm sure I'm not alone with my confusion.

Kind regards
K<o>

cbp · #60 (**permalink**) 03-11-2004, 07:00 PM

Quote:

Are results ranked by preference for SiteMatch or not?

It has been made clear numerous times that their will be no ranking preference given.

Quote:

So as long as yahoo manipulates the ranking of entries by how much money people pay or how much they can earn from the click through

They are not doing that. At least they have said they are not - we have no reason to disbelieve them.

Quote:

Yes, what if I can't afford the program. YahooSearch, you did not answer the question. what happens if my set daily/monthly limit is exceeded

There is no such thing as a daily limit.

Quote:

How does it influence my position in the search results?

It dosen't.

The vast majority of sites will not need to use SiteMatch.

CBP

Conficio · #61 (**permalink**) 03-11-2004, 07:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cbp

Paying for inclusion vis SiteMatch will not affect your ranking.

CBP

Hi CBP,
this I will only believe if it is proven to me. See there is a clear conflict of interest. If Yahoo ranks your SiteMatch after the otherwise better ranked, but free crawled listings, they loose out on the chance to earn the click through. Sooner or later there will be a change in policy.

The only thing that would convince me otherwise, is an independent outside auditor that would have access to the Yahoo ranking algorithm and verify it by independent research, every day!

One other logic defying piece. Why would I set a large limit for click-through, if after it expired, I show up in the very same spot of the results as before? Or does the click-through have an influence on the frequency or depth of the crawling of my pages? Is that what Yahoo means with "more clarity" or "more control"?

You find me in disbelieve
K<o>

Conficio · #62 (**permalink**) 03-11-2004, 07:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by YahooSearch

The new cost-per-click pricing is more equitable in that it scales with the value the program provides to each participating site. In addition, we offer a range of budgeting options that allow content providers to cap their spend at whatever levels they are comfortable with.

Dear CBP,
help me to understand what are the budgeting options, that yahoo provides? What are the caps, that keep the CPC costs at a comfortable level?

Thanks!
K<o>

cbp · #63 (**permalink**) 03-11-2004, 07:31 PM

From Tim in Yahoo Forum at WMW:

Quote:

Q. Will Yahoo! Search results favor sites that pay for the Site Match program?
A. Absolutely not. Payment is not for placement or ranking in search results. Our focus is on delivering the highest quality search experience on the web. As a result, all web pages are algorithmically ranked in the results based on their objective relevance to each specific search query in order to ensure the highest quality search experience for users.

Quote:

We carefully priced Site Match to be comparable to our old paid inclusion programs (Inktomi Search Submit, AltaVista Express Inclusion, and FAST PartnerSite PFI) and improved total value by adding new benefits: Yahoo! distribution, quality review, detailed reporting (AV didn't offer reporting), and enhanced customer service.

The up-front fees for Site Match are actually significantly lower than combined fees for the programs it replaces, and the additional cost-per-click component of Site Match pricing scales with the value delivered to each customer.

Below is a brief summary for a customer submitting 10 URLs:

- Annual fees for the 3 legacy programs: $1042
- Annual fees for Site Match: $310

The difference ($732) means the 10 URLs would have to generate 4880 clicks (488 per URL) at $0.15 per click before the price of Site Match reached the price of the old programs. Many URLs will not exceed this level of clicks, making Site Match less expensive than the old programs.

The cost-per-click assures fair pricing for every customer. Previously, some sites received far more clicks than others, making the old programs unfairly favorable for those sites. In addition to making the pricing model more equitable for customers, cost-per-click pricing protects our users by providing an incentive for content providers to submit only high-quality content--customers don't want to pay for irrelevant clicks on low-quality content. We realize cost-per-click pricing is new to many customers and have provided budgeting options to limit total cost: you can choose to pay a fixed amount per month or manually recharge your account to suit your budget. The program is designed to be customizable and to deliver fair value.

Quote:

There will be no changes to sites that are in the index right now or crawled for free in the future. If you have free content in the index it will remain in there for free.

CBP

YahooMike · #64 (**permalink**) 03-11-2004, 08:27 PM

In response to Greg Gates and other Site Match customers who are having problems with URLs that were submitted.

Due to the overwhelming response to the new Site Match program, we must temporarily extend the quality review period for some URLs. We appreciate your patience and assure you that we are working quickly to resume our 4 business day turnaround time. We are also working with our resellers to address the delays some customers have had receiving customer support in a timely fashion.

If it has been more than 4 business days since you submitted your URLs to Site Match and your URLs have not yet appeared, please contact your reseller for more information. You can also check your account status by logging into the Site Match Account Center.

Contact information for Site Match resellers is listed below:

INeedHits.com
Phone: US (including Hawaii) & Canada: 866 873 5834
ov.query@ineedhits.com

InfoSpider
Phone: 408-635-2289
support@infospider.com

Network Solutions
Phone: 800 779 1710
customerservice@networksolutions.com

MarketLeap
Phone: +1 888 201 9982 (7am to 5pm PST)
support@marketleap.com

Position Tech
Phone: 630 262 6255
support@positiontech.com

Trellian:
support@trellian.com

GSO · #65 (**permalink**) 03-11-2004, 08:35 PM

scticket asked:
"Is there a place to submit your url to these sites."

YahooSearch said they will be providing a free crawl from any url summissions at:http://submit.search.yahoo.com

I will continue to submit to http://www.dmoz.org/
any new site.

I probably will not use Yahoo! SiteSearch but I will also be looking closely at my position that is currently on Yahoo.

ashelley · #66 (**permalink**) 03-11-2004, 08:41 PM

It sounds like it comes down to believing or not in what Yahoo is saying. I think it is fair to be skeptical that my current FREE listing and ranking is NOT going to be effected by this program.
I paid to be list in Inktomi because they would not index my site without my payment. I strongly suspect Yahoo is headed in that direction. If I am wrong I will be delighted!
Why in the world would some HAVE TO PAY for inclusion and CPC, whlie others will list and rank FREE? The idea that Yahoo's Site Match was designed solely for the benefit of dynamic content sites and their searchers sounds ridiculous, does it not? IMO, only an extremely naive person could buy such an explanation.
I admit I am confused, skeptical and even, perhaps (sigh), bordering on paranoid. Those who continue to quote Yahoo's statement as though it is gospel is scary to me! Am I missing the boat completely here? Sheesh.

ChrisBowd · #67 (**permalink**) 03-11-2004, 09:36 PM

Whether Site Match is good or bad depends upon how unquestioning or intelligent one thinks a user is. If you assume that all users are unquestioning (and unfortunately certain US government studies suggest a large percentage are) then Yahoo! becoming another HotBot, with the first 2/3rds of the screen covered in paid ads, and the prospect of Google's AdWords gradually moving from the right area of the screen to central prominence (which they undoubtedly will) will eventually end SEO techniques as we (or rather you because I am only an amateur SEO trying to learn from the professionals) know them.

That is not an unusual scenario because the Internet is a new advertising and commerce medium and all new mediums are marked by the same evolutionary phases.

I choose to believe that (despite government statistics) humans are not the mindless unquestioning morons that politicians (and search-engine sales divisions) would doubtless prefer them to be. I almost never use HotBot because I detest a whole bunch of paid ads for sites wth often poor content, cluttering up the screen. One needs to wade through a ton of crap to get to the good stuff! Yahoo!, which has always been my favorite, is now starting to look the same way. As a user, and despite everything I read about PageRank, HillTop and Google's other cost-reduction technologies (because that is what they ultimately are) I rarely use Google because frankly the rekevance of its results are unpredictable and often totally off-topic.

The only certainty is that it costs a fortune to run any search-engine based on present technologies and that means paid-positioning or pay-per-click are inevitable. In fact the emerging search-engine business model is 1 - capture an audience on the basis of free and unbiased content then 2 - once you believe the audience is captive charge advertisers to access your audience. The fundamental flaw is that the audience is not captive. Google and Yahoo! are not Microsoft - there is no economic or platform-dependant lock-in.

Just as Google broke AltaVista's supposed perpetual hold so the time is approaching for a new search-engine to break Google's hold. Not such a difficult task as it might seem. What is required is a totally different way to provide a search and indexing capability. Google is close to it through their combination of ODP listings and their PageRank algorithm but nowhere near close enough.

pgwebdesigns · #68 (**permalink**) 03-11-2004, 11:20 PM

This is an email I just sent to Ineedhits inktomi submission service. I was unaware that there is no more inktomi submission service at all, just thought Site Match was something new not replacing everything else. Now what do I do. Many have recommended that we wait and see however my clients are losing traffic and money while we are waiting. Sometimes I really have to wonder why I am in the site design business and I sure am glad I am not in the SEO business except to help my own customers.

Anyway this is what I sent them, do you think I will get a reply and what does everyone think about the possibility of regional search engines becoming KING.

It looks like your company is pulling a "looksmart"

I thought what happened to them would deter any others from using the same tactics but I guess not.

For your information

your site match pricing policy is not within range of most small businesses

Big companies have budgets of hundreds and thousands of dollars and they can afford your highway robbery

however, smaller companies, which is my market and probably 80% of businesses (under 10 employees) out there are already paying through the nose for advertising in regional papers and don't have the budget to pay your exorbitant 15 cents per click rate.

An average customer getting 35 hits per day or about 1000 clicks per month would have to pay $150/month or $1800/year to stay in your system and for someone like howiesmarine.com - he is on the net to appeal to his regional and local buyers not global and so most clicks are people researching before they buy which means he won't get a sale to payback the click.

If people can't afford to pay $299US for listing in the Yahoo directory what makes you think they can afford $1800US.

Yahoo may feel that the only way to make money is to buy up everybody, but in the end they will lose their market share because most companies CAN"T AFFORD TO PAY TO BE IN THE PROGRAM!!!! ....therefore most sites will drop out of the program and BINGO, bad search engine results, which means people will stop using YAHOO to search.

Looks like it's time for regional directories to start getting into the fray as most companies want to appeal to local and regional markets anyway.

Maybe things will start to go in reverse....instead of big companies getting bigger, a bunch of smaller regional companies will come in and steal their business right out from under their noses...better service, better quality and cheaper pricing.

Regional directories will advertise in regional papers and print media and regional customers will look in those directories first when searching for products and information rather than the BIG 3 as the search results will be more relevant.

Yahoo had a chance to actually compete with Google. It looks they are going to screw it up with GREED again.

Too bad.

What I want to know is that just like Looksmart, will you be expecting my current clients who have already submitted to you for a year to start paying the per click cost and if they don't have money in their account (which they won't) will you be dropping their listing from the database just like Looksmart did????

pgwebdesigns · #69 (**permalink**) 03-11-2004, 11:27 PM

Get this, after I logged into my ineedhits inktomi submission account and then logged out, now in my inbox I got an info email saying that "I should have heard by now that Inktomi is no longer accepting new orders....blah,blah"

can you believe it, nice of them to inform me ahead of time.

http://www.pgwebdesigns.com
affordable business websites

pgwebdesigns · #70 (**permalink**) 03-11-2004, 11:41 PM

hello everyone

now that site match is here and paid inclusion into Inktomi and Altavista are gone. Is Ask Jeeves and Teoma a viable option. Or maybe Lycos. Has anyone had any success with these ones?

http://www.pgwebdesigns.com
affordable business websites

geoffreygag · #71 (**permalink**) 03-11-2004, 11:43 PM

Good evening,

I enrolled with site match on 3/03/04. I am active but I can't select my search terms.

Dave Hawley · #72 (**permalink**) 03-12-2004, 12:55 AM

It was looking like Yahoo was going down the right road to claim back #1 with their free crawl of the web. Site Match has just proven they still haven't grasped what is needed. Classic case of trying to make $$ in the short term with NO thought of long term.

Google must laugh loudly when they see what their (so called) closest competitor is doing.
Google deserves to be number 1 and will stay their for a while yet.

Mel · #73 (**permalink**) 03-12-2004, 02:13 AM

I believe all this to be nothing more than a tempest in a teapot, and much of it stirred up by a few who have not investigated enough to undeerstand the facts.

If we can believe what Yahoo representives tell us most of the negative posts have no foundation in fact, if we can't believe Yahoo reps then it will soon become apparent, but for now I see no indication of that.

Others may have different experiences, but the sites I handle were spidered and indexed by Yahoo with no action required on my part, the number of pages indexed in each site is on a par with Google and Alltheweb, and the pages rank much the same as they do in Google. I see no evidence of sites which have used SiteMatch being given ranking preference and I tend to agree with Yahoosearch that 99% of webmasters will not need to use SiteMatch.

Sorry Guys I just don't see the problem. Why is it that there are some who fail to see that right out of the box Yahoo has provided an impressively sized index (seems to me that only Google is larger) based on a free crawl? Whats wrong with that?

Dave Hawley · #74 (**permalink**) 03-12-2004, 02:20 AM

Quote:

Paying for inclusion vis SiteMatch will not affect your ranking.

Then whats the point of paying? Why should one spend a $ on SiteMatch over say, AdWords????

As far as their free crawl goe I guess only time will tell. However, to date, I have yet to see ANY bot grab as many pages on my site as googlebot. I have a couple of "Unknown robots" getting about 50% but "Inktomi Slurp" (not sure if this Yahoo or not???) is lucky to grab 15% of my pages.

Seems like nobody can deep crawl the web anywhere close to Google.

gregates · #75 (**permalink**) 03-12-2004, 04:49 AM

YahooSearch, Thank You very much!

I do not have the expertise in predicting 6 months down the road, how good Yahoo!'s search will be compared to Google's? You SEO folks can figure that out.

But what I can tell you, in my opinion, initially, Yahoo!'s Customer Service, and watching the pulse of the SEO community, is light years ahead of Google, even after just two weeks.

On this forum and others, for months I have personally begged, pleaded, almost on our knees, to get Google's attention. We have (selfishly saying) one of the best product offerings for quality and price in our category.

Some how we unknowingly got a Google penalty in August 2002 giving us a PR0. After getting guidance from Mel in early 2003, we removed the one piece of hidden text code, being not SEO educated, that an outside service in 2001 had put on our site.

We sent e-mails, personal letters to the Google founders, posted on several forums, for almost a year now, to attempt to have Google just look at our site and potentially give it a fair spidering for relevancy. Let the spidering result in the PR appropriate (no special treatment). In a year, we received ONLY one e-mail from Google (just one) that gave us no indication whether we had a penalty or not, whether Google would look at our site or not, leaving no answers to any of our questions.

BUT

We (today)post mid day here on this forum, and A PERSON from Yahoo! or Overture or whoever, ACTUALLY responds (today/the same day) to our plea (even mentions us by name).

We will just have to wait for the ultimate results from the Yahoo! relevancy algorithm as to what it does for our web site. We hope and pray all our 16/7/365 hard work for the past 5 years will be worthwhile. Time will tell.

But

In one day (today), we had more feedback (today) from Yahoo!, than we have received from Google in a year.

Folks, whether you like Yahoo! or not, our humble opinion is that Yahoo! seems to be committed to making this thing work. There response(s) to us and others in this forum, show they seem to have their eye on the ball, as well as watching the pulse of the SEO community. You have got an ear, SEO folks!

Once our URLs are accepted, we will give the forum some periodic posts of how we are doing with the new program, as well as how much additional unique traffic we get from the new program, stay tuned!

"YahooSearch", for your personal response to our and the others posts, thank you VERY MUCH.

Just think, a major search engine who cares about customers, what a unique idea.

Lastly

You folks have forgotten more about SEO than I will ever know. But I do recognize a potential good thing! SEO folks, you seem to have an ear to Yahoo!'s program. Use it wisely to make an impact/influence Yahoo! as to how to refine/improve their program for your customers.!

cbp MVP, your guidance to the members of this forum is spot on!

Constructive criticism YES, bashing NO!

Dave Hawley · #76 (**permalink**) 03-12-2004, 05:39 AM

anewday4us, I'm glad you found out the reason for your penalty from Google. However, I would say your reply here from Yahoo is more attributed to luck than customer servive. I could tell some real horror stories about the lack of Yahoo customer servive and how they wrongly took over $600.00 from our account. This took us nearly a year to resolve despite many emails and phone calls. I have many other similar horror stories.

You must remember that Googles customers are it's searchers not Webmasters, unless dealing with AdWords. Google goes to great lengths to omit spam sites and yours (from you hidden text description) would be one. Why would it ever want to help a site that spams? I fully realize this is NOT your fault, from what you say, but in Googles eyes the guilty party is the site and not the person who broke their rules.

Personally I applaud Google for NOT helping a site that spams. It's hard enough for us honest ones without Google helping the spammers!

vintagedge · #77 (**permalink**) 03-12-2004, 11:25 AM

Dave,

I am not an SEO expert (or even on the radar) but in regards to your comment:

Quote:

Quote:
Paying for inclusion vis SiteMatch will not affect your ranking.

Then whats the point of paying?

I think you have answered your own question - if you see no point in paying - don't pay. I keep hearing in this forum that if you have an optimized site, relevant content and a site that is able to be spidered then the search engines will find you. YahooSearch has stated in posts that 99% of sites will not need to use the pay service - so what is the problem?

I personally will wait to see the actual results rather than bash a company that is attempting to give us a viable alternative.

I also appreciate the response from YahooSearch in this forum. The most frustrating thing for me as a business owner for 20+ years (but not a SEO expert) is the lack of accurate information about the "rules". I have come to realize that this is the way of the world in this unique industry, but I find it refreshing to find someone willing to answer to the rumors.

Karen

emi_b · #78 (**permalink**) 03-12-2004, 02:00 PM

For your info Yahoo wrote the exact same thing in this forum. We shouldn't feel overly special for their response here.

theo · #79 (**permalink**) 03-12-2004, 02:03 PM

I anxious to see how this all pans out. One issue is a huge portion of sucessful e-commerce sites have a niche market or very specailized product / service. They use the web (and rightly so) to attract a larger share of their market. Those that use PPC methods usually do not have to pay very high click through rates.

The main concern I have is the site match pricing. The submission price is not so bad but the click pricing may be too high. $0.15 or $0.30 per click might be too high for the small business unless they have an extremely high covnersion ratio. I think many niche advertisers are paying low click fees in PPC so even $0.15 may throw a lot of them out of the game.

I know from experience that with PPC on common search terms in saturated markets (i.e., web design, online electronic stores, etc.) you have no choice to pay high click rates just to compete for listing space. With niche markets you do not have to pay so high. In many cases niche advertisers can get away with paying $0.05 to $0.10 for good placement.

I am not providing an answer but I just wonder if the $0.15 is going to be too high for niche markets.

jacki72 · #80 (**permalink**) 03-12-2004, 03:55 PM

I think the main reason so many people including myself are upset with Yahoo's new program is that the inktomi search submit was an excellent value - you pay for what you get: daily refreshes and guaranted inclusion. At $25 per URL for an entire year the ROI for me was fantastic. Now, overnight with no warning inktomi is no longer accepting new URLs. The new pricing structure of the "New & Improved" Site Search program does not even come close to this! I'm more than ok with paying a per URL submission fee, but it's the CPC that gets me. No way is that in my budget.

Although Yahoo says paying for Site Match will not affect rankings I just find this VERY HARD TO BELIEVE. I've done my own analysis in the past of my rankings in MSN. All of my URLs that I had submitted via (paid) inktomi site submit DID get better rankings than other URLs in my site that were not paid. How interesting. For me the hard data does not lie.

That being said, I did get a call from a Yahoo rep to discuss my concerns. I basically was able to bitch to him for 15 minutes about why this program does not work for small businesses like mine. I was actually pretty shocked to get a call from Yahoo and felt "slightly" better knowing that at least they are interested in what we have to say. That's a step in the right direction.

gregates · #81 (**permalink**) 03-12-2004, 06:34 PM

Quote:

We shouldn't feel overly special for their response here

Emi_b, we must respectfully disagree

In fact, seeing that Yahoo! responded in another forum, just adds to my personal, but uneducated in this topic feeling, that Yahoo! seems to be want to start off well by understanding the pulse of the Internet and SEO community.

Only time will tell if the recommendations and constructive criticism, by all of you who are the professionals at SEO, will be heard and acted upon by Yahoo! My vote is we give them a "wait and see" attitude for a few months to get their act together.

As we said previously in a post, we have had more response from Yahoo! in just one day, than we did for a year with Google. We are STILL waiting for Google to respond to our PR0 review plea for almost a year. We will let you know if they ever respond.

Greg

www.ringdesigner.com

Dave Hawley · #82 (**permalink**) 03-12-2004, 10:05 PM

Quote:

so what is the problem?

I don't know which is why I ask. My question is playing devils advocate in hope of a sensible answer. Why would I want to pay Yahoo a submission price AND 15 to 30c CPC over say something like Google Adwords, which is cheaper?

Quote:

I personally will wait to see the actual results rather than bash a company that is attempting to give us a viable alternative.

Since when is asking questions before paying for something "Bashing"? As for "viable alternative" that remains to be seen. All the pointers so far look like it's a short term grab for cash.

At the end of the day, Yahoo is trying to make money not do Webmasters any favours.

Greg, this is the typical sort of thing from Yahoo. They help all you want UNTIL you hand over the money. From that point on it's automated verbatim replies. This is of course based on my experience and reading in other forums.

Also, please read my post prior to this one about Googles lack of help.

Jayms · #83 (**permalink**) 03-12-2004, 10:33 PM

I'm a lurker only because I find most of my knowledge regarding optimizing my site from another forum - one targeted to my particular site's programming. This forum is beyond my scope of knowledge, so forgive me.

I read the "press release" about SiteMatch and I was still confused. I read more posts and am still confused.

The bottom line is: I do not want my ranking to drop from page 1 to page 5 because other sites have paid through SiteMatch.

My site is an ecommerce one. I NEED to be on page 1 or 2, but no farther down than 3 for general search terms like "fragrance oils" or "wholesale fragrance oils" or "candle oils" etc like I do now. I DON'T JUST WANT TO BE INDEXED. I imagine this is the same for any site selling products. My customers will not drill down to page 7 to possibly find a useful site (=my site), nor will most of my customers type in a "narrower" search. A large percentage of people still search broadly, those are the facts at least from my statistics from my site.

Having said that, I don't care what Yahoo! says, I find it hard to believe that my "free" site won't slowly fall...

...and fall

...and fall

to page 102.

Otherwise why have SiteMatch in the first place? The mere existence of it leads me to believe that sites that pay will "bubble up" to the top and where are those that are up there now go?

I don't like being lied to as I'm sure not many of you do either -- but it sounds as though we are...

sovidiu · #84 (**permalink**) 03-12-2004, 10:38 PM

YahooSearch said:
"we must temporarily extend the quality review period for some URLs. We appreciate your patience and assure you that we are working quickly to resume our 4 business day turnaround time."

Is this company not keeping its word? There is nothing about patience on the Internet. Add a web site to Google and you get it crawled in less than three days. Nice try.

Jayms · #85 (**permalink**) 03-12-2004, 10:42 PM

Maybe a Yahoo! spokesman (since they frequent here) can reply in detail to this question:

What kind of a site WOULD want to pay for SiteMatch as opposed to a free submission?

And then we'll decide if we fit into that category or not. That seems easy and fair enough.

minstrel · #86 (**permalink**) 03-12-2004, 10:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sovidiu

Is this company not keeping its word? There is nothing about patience on the Internet.

There isn't a lot of patience on our highways either but maybe we'd be better off if there were...

Quote:

Add a web site to Google and you get it crawled in less than three days. Nice try.

I think a lot of people would report a different experience...

cbp · #87 (**permalink**) 03-12-2004, 11:14 PM

Quote:

What kind of a site WOULD want to pay for SiteMatch as opposed to a free submission?

I think they have answered that.

This thread is still full of posts that are "throwing stones" at Yahoo from people who have not bothered to get their facts right.

CBP

Dave Hawley · #88 (**permalink**) 03-12-2004, 11:22 PM

Quote:

I think they have answered that.

They haven't answered mine.

Jayms · #89 (**permalink**) 03-12-2004, 11:35 PM

I haven't thrown any stones...
I just want answers to my specific questions. Nothing vague, cloudy, or gray or for god's sake, convoluded.

I just haven't read anything that leads me to believe that my site will not fall because of another that pays (other than someone claiming that it won't - and that someone being impartial).

I almost signed up with SiteMatch, but when I saw that my listing would appear in the main body like it does now...well...what is the point? Then I started thinking. If paid sites will show up in the main body (as illustrated on the signup), probably on the first pages I imagine, my listing on the first page will be relegated to where....farther down on the first page? Those are the kinds of details I'm looking for and for which you, cbp, nor they have answered.

I DON'T JUST WANT TO BE INDEXED.
and
I DON'T WANT TO BE DISPLACED.

And I admire your knowledge of the issue, however, why not just answer the questions instead of saying "I think they have answered that." You seem to do that a lot and it appears as if from a high horse somewhere.

cbp · #90 (**permalink**) 03-12-2004, 11:35 PM

Quote:

Quote:
I think they have answered that.

They haven't answered mine.

I think they have. You need to read carefully what they are saying.

The sites that will benefit from SiteMatch are those that would benefit the most from the 48hrs refreshes; those that would normally have trouble getting crawled (eg large sites that spiders do not normally go deep into); dynamic sites; etc

ie most sites would not benefit.

Here is what the Yahoo "Press Release" said earlier in this thread:

Quote:

Q. Why should I pay for Site Match if my site is already indexed or may soon be indexed for free?
A. Our primary goal is to discover and include all content on the web through our free web crawling process. Today 99% of the information in the index comes from the free crawl. Site Match, however, provides many benefits to content providers even when their content is already indexed.

Both content providers and search users benefit from greater interaction between sites and the search engine. In fact, for several years a good number of message board posters have been asking for greater clarity from search engines about how to participate and what the “rules” are. The Site Match program addresses this additional need by providing a value-added service that focuses on providing a clearer, more consistent way to interact with Yahoo! Search. Specific components include: the ability to proactively submit content to us, frequent refresh, quality review, detailed reporting, and support when problems arise. The program is cost-effective, easy to manage, and includes the ability to control total cost.

Yahoo! believes that Site Match delivers:
1. Higher quality search results for users, including reducing the amount of search spam (spammers are economically disincented to participate)
2. A clearer, more consistent way to interact with Yahoo! Search for content providers who historically have been subjected to unpredictable changes in the way their content has been discovered and presented by search engines.

Customers in particular who will find Site Match extremely valuable include those with:
- Sites that have harder to find content or with information that can’t currently be crawled by any search engine (e.g. sites with dynamic content, such as extensive product catalogs)
- Sites seeking more control over the content that is discovered
- Sites seeking more control over how the content is presented
- More dynamic sites seeking faster refresh rates
- Sites that are looking for more user data and clearer, more consistent interaction with the search engine

Yahoo! believes these benefits are of value to many businesses, and the considerable demand for the program we’ve seen thus far would seem to support that. However, the program may not be valuable to everyone. We understand this – not everyone wants or needs the value-added service that Site Match offers. That’s OK, because it’s likely that we already have your web pages through our regular crawl, and if we don’t yet, we’re working to get them over time. This is a cornerstone of our mission to provide the highest quality search experience on the internet.

More specifically, you may not find value in the Site Match program if the following is the true:
- Your site is well discovered by the free crawl
- The right content is discovered and you are consistently satisfied with when and how your content is presented
- The information on your site is fairly static and the faster refresh is of less value to you
- You don't think you need more user data on search performance

If this describes your site, then the free crawl may be adequate for you and you don’t need the added value of the Site Match programs.

CBP

ChrisBowd · #91 (**permalink**) 03-12-2004, 11:44 PM

Google is an interesting animal to observe.

For all of the technology and talk I personally believe that ther results are quirky at best and often irrelevant at worst, especially past page 1! To understand Google you need to remember it was initially a university research project that kind of grew! PR is arbitrary at best and as the number of SEOs running scripts to add their text-links to Blogs shows, it is easily open to abuse. Frankly the idea of rating a site based primarily on the number of sites that link to it and then rating each of those sites according to the number of sites that link to them ad infinitum is a recipe for a computing disaster. PR is a nice academic challenge but it will not scale well with the growth of the Web. As the Web grows Googles computational challenge and costs will increase exponentially.

Anyway, my main point is Google's customer support. I personally think it is extremely good, especially given the number of support calls they must daily deal with.

I use AdWords on one of my sites and they have been excellent at providing me with free keyword analysis and eben going so far as to offer advice to optimize the site for their free results.

At the end of the day search-engines are just one more channel to get one's message out to the market. Just as the big companies get to buy the big ads in the New York Times, USA Today etc. so will they inevitably get to buy the big space on the main Internet search engines. Thats life and its what makes small business so much fun!

Jayms · #92 (**permalink**) 03-12-2004, 11:54 PM

Quote:

At the end of the day search-engines are just one more channel to get one's message out to the market. Just as the big companies get to buy the big ads in the New York Times, USA Today etc. so will they inevitably get to buy the big space on the main Internet search engines. Thats life and its what makes small business so much fun!

Now that's it! The first intelligent and logical thing I've read thus far. Something easy to wrap our minds around. Something that resembles the truth.

Tell me if the space will be used up by payers..
Tell me that my ranking will drop...
Tell me if I should plan ahead for that...

Don't lie to me and say, "Nothing will happen..."

It takes so damned long to realize results with SEO as it is. We need all the headstart we can get!

Dave Hawley · #93 (**permalink**) 03-13-2004, 12:08 AM

But my question is

Quote:

Why would I want to pay Yahoo a submission price AND 15 to 30c CPC over say something like Google Adwords, which is cheaper?

Seems to me like Adwords does all (and much more) than SiteMatch and is cheaper.

ChrisBowd · #94 (**permalink**) 03-13-2004, 12:35 AM

I suppose it depends upon the competition for one's keywords.

Fortunately I am able to get #1 - #3 position on AdWords at 5c - 8c per click.

I already have #3 position in Yahoo!'s free results for my #2 set of keywords so I may try Site Match for my #1 set (where there is 10x more competition and I am back in the 'boldly go where no man has been before' regios (I.e. page 2 or deeper!).

It will be worth a few dollars just to see my site at the #1 position for a few days!

Mel · #95 (**permalink**) 03-13-2004, 01:48 AM

Adwords and Sitematch target different markets, just like advertising in both of your daily newspapers, even though their pricing may be different.

Dave Hawley · #96 (**permalink**) 03-13-2004, 03:00 AM

Quote:

Fortunately I am able to get #1 - #3 position on AdWords at 5c - 8c per click.

I need to pay upwards of a $1.00 for many of my Ads IF I want #1 on AdWords. However, this is the beauty of AdWords (my secrete recipe) where I always bid the min and get as many clicks as I want without reaching the 0.5% CTR, which would cut me off.

AdWords and SiteMatch are tageting the same market. That is, those that are willing to pay to expose their page to x people. Problem is SiteMatch seems to be completely inflexible where AdWords is VERY flexible.

All that I have read to date on SiteMatch tells me that all they will get in the ignorant (I mean nothing nasty by this) Webmaster who knows no better.

I would suprised if SiteMatch remains 'as is' for long. If it does, I would be suprised if it remains at all.

kenmcc · #97 (**permalink**) 03-13-2004, 05:33 AM

Hi there,

My first post here... there seem to be some very interesting comments on pricing / ROI throughout this thread - of course ROI is what CPC and PPC is all about.

First of all, I've got to say that Site Match strikes me as a great idea - although they've possibly got the pricing wrong, this remains to be seen....

Pretty revolutionary idea, some users just don't like clicking sponsored ads, and as such click thru rates are bound to improve for certain advertisers.

I noticed that Overture's site quotes Jupiter Media's research that optimum ROI is achieved from PPC ads, with 29% versus 23% ROI for paid inclusion (see http://www.content.overture.com/d/US...ays_roiP.jhtml)

If Site Match doesn't deliver ROI, site owners won't use it!

Next of all, with all this talk of Google Austin and Hilltop, I wondered whether the heightened importance of links in 'expert' sites might be part of the rationale behind Yahoo's new policy.

I've recently found several examples of where listings in Yahoo and other directories have had a very postive impact on Google rankings - could it be that increased exposure in Yahoo might bolster Google rankings?

Just a thought...

Ken

Mel · #98 (**permalink**) 03-13-2004, 05:44 AM

Adwords and SiteMatch have very little in common.

Adwords is a context based ad delivery system in which you first of all determine how much you are willing to pay for your ranking position on particular keywords and then per click at the rate you chose for the traffic it generates.

SiteMatch is a program for including your pages within the Yahoo index, ranking is based soley on your pages relevancy under th Yahoo algorithm, and then you pay a fixed price per click with no control over the pricing.

IMO they are different systems for different users, and while I doubt I would ever use SiteMatch I suppose there are those who would, but then again I have never had to use Adwords either.

Mel · #99 (**permalink**) 03-13-2004, 05:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kenmcc

Hi there,

...

Next of all, with all this talk of Google Austin and Hilltop, I wondered whether the heightened importance of links in 'expert' sites might be part of the rationale behind Yahoo's new policy.

I've recently found several examples of where listings in Yahoo and other directories have had a very postive impact on Google rankings - could it be that increased exposure in Yahoo might bolster Google rankings?

Just a thought...

Ken

Hi Ken and welcome.

IMO there is no evidence to show that Hilltop is being used (even though there is lots of speculation), but even if it is being used I doubt that links from Yahoos web search are going to count as the Yahoo search site prohibits all spiders in its robots.txt file.

But that said links from the Yahoo and DMOZ directories have always had a positive effect on Google rankings.

Dave Hawley · #**100** (**permalink**) 03-13-2004, 05:51 AM

Hi Ken

Nice first post. As you say, it's all about ROI, whether it be SiteMatch, Adwords or any other PPC and/or PFI.

The ROI is the main reason I use Google AdWords. I can pay the min, 10c per click, mention the word Buy and/or $$ in all my ads. I can also exclude third world countries (a well as others that cannot afford to buy) and use negative keywords like -Free, -Sharware, -Freeware etc etc to be as sure as possible that I only attract buyers. So for $50.00 per day I can get 500 good potential customers. I doubt very much that Yahoo's SiteMatch can even come close to that!

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