Pay for Position Web Sites

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by Steve Tice

First there was Goto, now there's Kanoodle, FindWhat, RocketLinks, and more on the way. You were just getting comfortable with Goto, and now you have to contend with these new players. Should you be advertising with them as well? What can you expect from some of these new sites?

As many of you know, Goto is the leader in this segment. They have made deals where they supply search results to sites across the net. When you bid on a Goto keyword, not only will Goto customers have access to it, but so will searchers on Go2Net, Dogpile and many more. Goto estimates that only 10% of their searches come from their website. Traffic is what makes Goto king. However, this traffic comes with a price, which is higher and higher bids. While there are plenty of affordable keywords you can bid on, the prime keywords have become very expensive, some costing a dollar or more per click. Unless you have a large budget, you will need to be creative in your keyword selection. They do have a keyword center that will help you see what other people are searching for in relation to that prime keyword. Say you wanted 'real estate', but can't afford $2 per click. With the keyword center you will see the top searches performed that included the term "real estate" in them. While they might not have as many searches performed for them, you might have a chance at a top or near top position, which could produce traffic at an affordable price.

Goto requires a $25 opening deposit. They will notify you when that balance starts to run low. You can then add more money, or you can have them set up an automatic draft to keep you from having to add funds every time you run low.

Goto employs editors that first check the relevancy of your keyword submission before it goes "live" on their site. This process can take several days. While I applaud the idea of trying to ensure a relevant search every time, and this method does ensure that, I hate waiting for my keyword to go live. Call it Christmas morning syndrome if you like, but I hate to come up with a new keyword and have to wait to see the results generated by it. I have had problems with these relevancy editors making mistakes, which then can take another day or two to get corrected while explaining why it is relevant. Further, you have to wait for these editors to change your site description as you direct, and also to delete a keyword from your account.

Of the new breed, the most promising appears to be FindWhat. I first became aware of FindWhat during the mid part of 1999 when BeFirst announced they would launch the site. I started following the company, and even purchased stock in them. Today the company is FindWhat, and they seem to be the biggest challenger to Goto. Watching FindWhat evolve was painful to say the least. I was one of the first advertisers on FindWhat, and initially started with a $10.00 deposit(they went to $25.00 soon after). That $10.00 lasted for months, while I kept adding more money to my Goto account. Now, I find that I am adding money to my FindWhat account almost as fast as I am Goto. FindWhat took a market by market approach to their growth, and are now seeing it pay off with traffic that is increasing exponentially on a monthly basis. The only unfortunate result of their growth is that it's getting harder and harder for a small advertiser to stay in the top positions.

The biggest advantage to FindWhat over Goto, in my opinion, is the advertiser's section. Unlike Goto, keywords go live immediately. They rely on the integrity of their advertisers, and also on human editors that scout the site. Several other features, like a bulk keyword submission service make it a joy to work with. When you log into the advertisers section, you are greeted by a bar chart showing activity for the month. When you click on activity overview, you are given a break down of your clicks, including a pie chart of your top 10 clicks. Currently, their biggest shortcoming is their keyword center, which due to less traffic than Goto, is much less developed. I would assume it will improve as their traffic does.

For the month of April, my real estate oriented search terms generated 287 clicks thus far with FindWhat, while I have 189 clicks with Goto. The explanation for that difference is the increasing traffic at FindWhat, coupled with their lower click-through costs which helps me stay near the top. However, much like what I experienced on Goto, I am having a difficult time maintaining a top position with some of the marquee terms such as "real estate".

Quite frankly though, relying on a narrower keyword like a specific market "Atlanta real estate" or a specific term "real estate agent" produces a more focused click than "real estate". At least that's what I have convinced myself.

See Part 2 where I will introduce you to some pay per click sites that you might not have heard of yet. Some have yet to prove they deserve any attention, while one or two have the makings of a solid future.

The information contained within this article is derived from my personal experiences and observations.