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Yahoo!/Overture Site Match: A License To Steal
by Dean Phillips
Anyone may use this article free of charge, provided the
article is
not altered and the resource box remains intact.
Unless you've been living in a cave somewhere, I'm sure you've
heard
by now, Overture now offers the Yahoo! Search Inclusion under
its
own branded name--Site Match.
According to the page info from Overture, submitting your site
to
individual search engines is expensive and time-consuming. But
with
Site Match you can reach millions of users by submitting your
pages
through one program that powers search results for top web
portals
such as Yahoo!, AltaVista, AlltheWeb and other sites.
Summary of Site Match Benefits (according to Overture):
* More exposure for your site--reach more than 75% of active
internet users
* A simple, single point of submission to multiple web portals
such
as Yahoo!, AltaVista and AlltheWeb
* Frequent refresh of your pages--every 48 hours
* Daily reporting to track and optimize performance
* Pricing--Hybrid of Inclusion and Pay-Per-Click
Site Match uses a hybrid of the old Inktomi paid inclusion
program
and the pay-per-click search listings. When you start a Site
Match
subscription, a non-refundable annual review fee is charged
for
setting up your account and for quality review of your pages.
Once
your pages are accepted into the program, a cost-per-click fee
is
charged for each lead driven to your site.
URL Submission (non-refundable annual fee, per domain)
First URL: $49
Next 2-10 URLs: $29 each
11th URL and beyond: $10 each
Cost-Per-Click Fee:
Tier 1 Categories: $.15
Adult
Automotive
Books
Computers & Software
Dating
Education & Career
Entertainment & Attractions
Jewelry & Watches
Music & Video
Office
Other
Reference
Sports & Outdoors
Toys & Baby Equipment
Tier 2 Categories: $.30
Apparel
Electronics
Financial Services
Flowers, Gifts & Registry
Health, Beauty & Personal Care
Home & Garden
Professional Services
Real Estate
Telecom & Web Services
Travel $.30
Okay, now that we've gotten the preliminaries out of the way,
here's
the real deal on Yahoo!/Overture's Site Match:
It's a license to steal! It really is. Here's why:
Site Match isn't a true pay-per-click program, like Google's
Adwords
or Overture's own pay-per-click program.
What's the difference? With Site Match, you don't have any
control
over how much you pay for a particular keyword. I'll talk more
about
that later.
Site Match charges you $49 to "review" your URL, at which
point you
get included in the databases of several search engines,
including
the new Yahoo! search engine. By the way, paying the $49
annual fee
doesn't improve your page ranking one iota.
It's also important to point out, this isn't the same thing as
Yahoo!'s Submit Express, where you have to pay $300 to have
them
review your site for possible inclusion in their directory,
without
any guarantee whatsoever.
With Site Match, you're guaranteed that your URL will be
included in
their various databases, and will be spidered regularly. This
is how
it works: If your listing is shown for a particular query and
someone clicks on it, you get charged an additional 15 or 30
cents--
over and above the $49 annual fee! That's one reason why I
call Site
Match a license to steal. Here's another:
If your URL already happens to be in the search engine
databases,
you're now paying money for clicks you would have previously
gotten
for free.
It's really a bad deal, because for most sites, paying more
than
$.10 per click will end up costing you money.
If you've participated in a true pay-per-click program, you
already
know that there are many keywords, especially generic terms,
that
are worth little or nothing, so you'd never bid on them to
begin
with--or you'd bid very low.
But with Site Match that control is completely taken away from
you
because, the way the program is set up, you have to pay a
minimum of
$.15 to $.30 per click, no matter what.
Personally, I think you should avoid Site Match like the
Bubonic
Plague!
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