Paid Placement Programmes
Some engines charge according to how you want your site to rank for a particular search phrase. You bid for a search term and position and then pay everytime a user 'click through' to your site - sometimes called a "pay-per-click" (PPC) or a "cost-per-click" (CPC) search engine. The two main paid placement programmes are Yahoo Sponsored Search and Google Adwords. Major second tier PPC players include Espotting.com, Findwhat.com and Kanoodle.com.

These programmes may be worthwhile if your site is not ranking in the generic search engine results as you would like. This form of search engine advertising means that you can be guaranteed to appear in the top results for the terms you are interested in within a day or less. Given this, paid listings are an option that should be explored by site owners who wish to quickly build visibility. They may also be a long-term advertising option for some. They will work best if you manage them closely on a regular basis.

The search engine and directory situation changes almost daily. The information here is up to date as of May 2007. So, sorry it does need updating. We will do that when we rebuild this site soon. Following is information and links to some of the major search engines and directories.

Major Search Engines

• Google
  Still the most important of the crawler based search engines due to its popularity with those searching the web. Provides comprehensive coverage of the web along with great relevancy of results. The best way to get listed with Google is to build links to your web site which can also help boost result rankings. Good use of keywords & phrases in your page text also very important for rankings.
  
  Google also operates its own paid placement advertising programme, 'Google Adwords'. This cost-per-click programme places ads on Google as well as Google's partners. Similarly, Google is also a provider of unpaid editorial results to some other search engines.


• Yahoo
  Closely following Google in popularity & importance due to its size and relevancy of results. Yahoo now uses its own crawler based listings for its main results. Offers various paid placement and pay per click options. Like Google, Yahoo's paid advertising links appear on other sites also.
• MSN - Live Search
  An important crawler-based search engine used by many people in the US. Uses Microsoft's "Live Search" engine. Has paid listings in results. Now called Bing (2009)
• Ask.com
  Previously called Ask Jeeves, uses crawler-based technology to provide results to its users. Has sponsored listings on the site also
• AlltheWeb/Fast
  Previously owned by a company called FAST but now owned by Yahoo which provides its search results. Has paid inclusion programmes.
• AOL
  Default search engine for many AOL customers in the USA.
• HotBot
  One of the oldest search engines, HotBot currently provides easy access to two major crawler-based search engines, MSN and Ask.
• AltaVista
  One of the longest surviving engines but less important than it used to be. Now owned by Yahoo and uses Yahoo's crawler results.
• Lycos
  One of the oldest search engines on the web but no longer crawls for its own listings. Currently uses Ask results.
• Netscape
  Owned by AOL Time Warner, Netscape uses Google for its main listings as well as some of its own content.
• Overture
  The pioneer of paid placement programmes, Overture is now owned by Yahoo and the site redirects to Yahoo.
• Excite
  Used to be a major player but now a minor one. Uses results fron Ask, Yahoo, Google and others.