New Article - Understanding Yahoo's Paid Inclusion Program

[thejenn]

Authored by: Jayme Westervelt

Full Text: http://www.searchengineguide.com/wes...sion_prog.html

A Snippet:

Yahoo! currently offers two flavors of their paid inclusion program: Search Submit Express and Search Submit Pro. Your needs and the amount of control you want over your submissions will determine which program, if any, is best for you.

[warrenduff]

Yahoo! have recently changed their Paid Inclusion offerings.

Search Submit Pro is still currently available as described.

Search Submit Express may still be available from limited resellers however, it has been replaced with Search Submit Basic.

Search Submit Basic is a flat fee $49 per year, no click fees, for up to 5 URLs from a single domain into the index. If the domain is currently enrolled in SSE or SSP, then it can not be in SSB.

Features of SSB are:

• 49 per year per URL
  No Click Fees
  Fast 4 Day inclusion
  Click Reporting
  Regular refreshes

Further information is available at the ineedhits or the Yahoo Search Marketing websites (sorry I can't post a URL to either as the system will not let me!)

Cheers
Warren Duff
COO
ineedhits.com

[Michael79]

Regarding SSP, I just realized our company is buying our top branded keyword and spending a bundle on it. It is a term that would otherwise rank #1 organically any how. It does in Google and I know would in Yahoo.

Last month we spent $2500 on it for a return of 1.40X. I explained to them that this could and should be free traffic and that the $2500 spent should go to the bottom line not our 3rd party feed provider. From 11/1 of last year to 12/31 we spent $30,000 on it! I expect that to go up significantly this year.

Overruled on it, apparently the idea of getting quick links below it that assist in taking up real estate above the fold means too much to them to lose.

Ran the numbers on those links and found they drive a small amount of clicks and the return is break even.

85% of visitors coming in from that search query will click the main link.

I am trying to figure out if I am not seeing this from the right perspective or does my thought on this make sense?

Thanks!

[Logan]

Your thoughts do make sense.

From the article - Yes, the paid inclusion program gets the spider to visit your site sooner, but just having spiders visit your site won't get you rankings. Your site still needs to be full of relevant content, themed correctly, have no major server or spiderability issues and be void of any deceptive practices.

Paid inclusion is about spidering, and the converse of the above applies as well that a site that is relevant and full of content, themed, etc will rank with or without paid inclusion. My theory, and it's a tough one to verify, is there is a key difference with paid inclusion vs non paid inclusion. I believe when paid inclusion is utilized Yahoo has a review process (think human at computer). imo, that review stage initiated by paid inclusion 'might' carry weight within the algorithm/organic results.

A couple thoughts ... I do not disagree with the 'real estate' counter arguement IF it is providing the ROI 'and' that budget could not be utilized better by targeting other keywords, etc. At the same time, keeping the competition out of the space can be essential - but I agree an organic ranking would likely occur.

Only way to know for sure, is to track, test, track, test, test, test. If other keywords are a consideration with this campaign - I would imagine an account manager could assist you with including some negative keywords/brand in your campaign. But of course you don't want to exclude your site from the index/serp.

My approach would be to shift that budget to other more productive/roi keyword areas. Most who search your brand will find you, regardless of pfi/ppc

[Michael79]

I completely agree about the increased urgency of the spiders visiting our site when we use paid inclusion, I do not feel that is a factor in our case, we've done a great job of ranking high for our key term in question. In Google we are #1 and have been for some time. I'm very confident that without PI we would continue to be #1, hence the question as to whether we should be paying for the extra attention and large piece of real estate.

Those quick links like I said before draw marginal click volume but are great for keeping competitors below the fold, they are consistently break even. And our main link has a return of 2.4X this month. The ratio seems nice at first, but come Q4, we're looking at the possibility of adding $25-40K to the bottom line. I cant think of any single keyword optimization at this point in time which would deliver that sort of return, at least in this account.

I think each argument has it's pluses, and management just stated they refuse to test it even...