Search Engine Placement

Search engine placement - there are 2 basic types, paid placement and paid inclusion. The difference is small but important.

Paid Placement

Most major search engines carry paid search engine placement listings. These listings may be referred to as “sponsored listings,” “paid search ads,” "pay for placement," "pay for performance," "CPC listings" (cost-per-click) and "PPC listings" (pay per click). The last two terms reflect the fact that advertisers pay for these listings only if someone clicks on the ad.

By paying, advertisers can improve search engine placement immediately without waiting for natural SEO to work. These paid listings are usually separate from standard search results and labeled as advertisements. The position of these paid placements can vary – above, below or to one side of the standard results.

Paid Search Engine Inclusion

This option allows advertisers to pays a fee to have their Web pages included within the standard search engine results. The major search engines offering such a program say that payment does not provide improved search engine placement. When would paid inclusion be a benefit?

- Advertisers with a brand new Website may choose paid inclusion to shortcut the time it would take a crawler-based search engine to find and index the pages.

- Pages that change frequently might benefit from paid inclusion. Website owners can specify specific schedules for crawling pages. Those sites listed in the standard results have no control as to when their page will be crawled or added to a search engine index. Paid inclusion proves to be particularly useful for cases where pages are dynamically generated and frequently modified.

- Pages that are difficult to index for any reasons are good candidates for paid inclusion. An advertiser can ensure these pages are included, provided they pay.

Remember that paid inclusion provides no higher search engine placement. Paid inclusion was popular several years ago but there are not many paid inclusion programs left.