Examples:
| Excite - add URL info - Site Submit FAQ - |
| Express Submit - Get Listed Fast!
Guaranteed site review within two business days* Your site submitted to the Excite
directory and the rest of the LookSmart Network Low one-time payment of $199 US
*Within two business days you will be notified whether your site qualifies for inclusion in the LookSmart Network, which includes the Excite directory. |
| Basic Submit Site review in approximately 8 weeks Low one-time payment of $99 US |
| Altavista LookSmart Network reaches 64 million people, or four of five U.S. Web users. The Network includes the AltaVista Directory, Excite, MSN, Time Warner, CNN and more than 370 ISPs. |
| Low
one-time payment of $199 U.S. It does not guarantee priority placement within categories, nor does it entitle the user to any special consideration above and beyond the Submit a Site Terms of Service. |
| You may submit your URL to the AltaVista Search Index at no cost. AltaVista is one of the most comprehensive indexes on the Web. Submitting your site to the AltaVista Search Index does not guarantee your site will be added to the index, nor does it include submission to categories of AltaVista's Directory. |
| Yahoo! If you are suggesting your business site somewhere within our main commercial categories, you will see a link to the fee-based Business Express submission process -- required for commercial sites. The current fee for Yahoo! Business Express is a one-time, nonrefundable fee of US$199.00 for each web site submitted. My site was denied. Can I appeal the decision? You are entitled to one appeal with Yahoo!. Only appeals received by email will be considered. Yahoo! must receive your email within thirty days from the date that Yahoo! transmits the acceptance/rejection email to you. Payment does not guarantee inclusion in the directory, site placement, or site commentary. It only guarantees that Yahoo! will respond to your submission within seven business days. |
| Can I appeal the decision? Oh yes you get one chance to get it put right. Great. |
| Arguments For & Against: You may argue that many sites being added are for business and as such they can afford to pay these fees for inclusion. Well the truth of the matter is that quite a few of these companies can't afford to pay to get registered at search engines. For a lot of small business this will be a further disincentive not to get on the Net - they're already going to have to pay for domain names, web design and hosting - without adding further to the cost. For a lot of small designers just adding one paid submission fee into their costings will increase the cost they have to pass on to the customer - and for the most part mean that their services will be too expensive. For individuals who create sites - for pleasure rather than business, they'll not be able to afford to blow a couple of hundred bucks on getting submitted to the major SE. Anyone who believes that the introduction of pay per review will not affect the quality of the Search Engines is much mistaken. OK, so you might not get someone's first attempt at a home page included anymore, but you'll also lose out on the important stuff too - the stuff that does change the world. And that's the whole point of the Internet isn't it? That it doesn't belong to anyone, and we're all free to have a piece of it with our name on! The moment we let the Net slip into corporate hands then we're sunk. The net as we know it will slowly cease to exist. And that's what the pay for review search engines are doing. They're cutting people out. Governments can't police the Internet - so should we let corporate America police it for us? But there's a free submission service still! Yeah, and you think that it'll be as quick as it used to be? Money talks, and in this case it shoves too - right to the front of the queue. What's the point of a free submission service which takes months and months before your site gets looked at? If this actually discourages small companies then this will reinforce the Internet as a place for big companies. And sadly big company isn't always good company. How long before having your page found by a search engine becomes too expensive for all but the blue chip companies? I'll be monitoring the search engines and directories below and updating this list as and when I find things have changed. Other than for research purposes for this site, I will not be using search engines or directories where reviews cost money. |
| Search Engines | ||
| http://www.altavista.com/ | pay $199 | Free also - Now with a special Anti-Spam image |
| http://www.alltheweb.com/ | free | FAST surges to top of search engine field - 575 million URLs |
| http://www.directhit.com | free | |
| http://www.excite.com/ | Express $199 US Basic $99 US | Free also |
| http://search.go.com/ | Closing? - see this article | Goto.com will be running it. Apparently. |
| http://www.google.com/ | free | |
| http://www.goto.com/ | pay per click | |
| http://www.hotbot.com/ | free | |
| http://www.lycos.com/ | free | |
| http://www.northernlight.com/ | free | |
| http://raging.com/ | From altavista | |
| http://www.looksmart.com | $199 Express (within two business days) or $99 Regular (up to 8 weeks). | exempt are registered tax-exempt non-profit organizations. |
| Notes: Alltheweb.com appears to be the biggest search engine as of Oct 2000 |
| Portals and directories | ||
| http://www.dmoz.com/ | Free | partner sites such as AOL Search, AltaVista, HotBot, Google, Lycos, Netscape Search, etc. |
| http://www.looksmart.com/ |
Express $199 , Basic (8 weeks) $99 | msn, excite, altavista, iwon, CNN, |
| http://www.snap.com/ | $99.00 Top Sites | |
| http://www.yahoo.com/ | Business $199 |