Inktomi Teams Up with Content Publishers to Provide Users with Quality Content and Enhanced Search Results
Translated to plain English: Inktomi tries to bill sites to properly index them. Not that paid inclusions are necessarily bad, since being indexed sometimes weeks after submission (if at all) is the default value proposition you get for free. Once again, you get what you pay for. There’s enough personal, academic and not-for-profit content on the web for search engines to keep free listings, lest they lose their core value. Corporations however can start to budget for search engine indexing and listing.
Search engines look like black boxes to most site owners that rely on third parties claiming to master the arcane ways of search engine optimization (SEO). Why not go direct and get these budgets as well? Yahoo! already proposes consulting services to advertisers, search engines can likewise help sites get the most of their listings. That’s different from paid placement, which is more likely to be in conflict with the interest of the end user (seeing the most expensive results vs the most relevant ones.)
04/03/01 update: Time For the Search Dividend?
