Yahoo! is trying to find ways to strengthen revenues just like every other dot-com on the virtual block. Towards that end, they are doing away with free submissions for "commercial" web sites. As a real estate professional, your personal Web site qualifies as just that, in their eyes.

From now on, to be considered for review by Yahoo for inclusion in their index, you must pay an annual $299 "Express Submission Fee." For this fee, they guarantee that someone at Yahoo! will review your site within a finite period of time. Using this service, sites typically get reviewed and placed online within a week or two, if they are deemed worthy by Yahoo employees.

Their free submission process was always hit or miss, anyhow. Inundated with countless submissions, Yahoo!'s human editors have never been able to keep up. Search engine engineers at my company often had to resubmit client sites to Yahoo! over and over and over. Their frustration with the Yahoo free submission process was not uncommon in the greater internet community. In response, Yahoo created a submission process that guaranteed your site would be reviewed - but it was no longer free. If you wanted to avoid paying them, you still had the option of using their frustrating but free submission process.

Realtor sites - along with all the other sites seen by Yahoo! as commercial - no longer have the option to submit their sites for free to Yahoo. If you aren't already in their directory, now you need to pay. But keep in mind that Yahoo! is not guaranteeing inclusion in their system for your $300. Here's what they say:

"Your payment and participation in Yahoo! Express guarantees that within seven business days a member of Yahoo!'s editorial staff will look at your site and consider it for inclusion in the Yahoo! directory. Please keep in mind that payment does not automatically guarantee inclusion in the directory, site placement, or site commentary. As with all sites suggested to us, final judgment remains solely with Yahoo! editors."

Yahoo! is not the only search engine or directory trying to stay afloat on the web. Looksmart charges about the same for submissions to their directory. Inktomi (which powers many search sites) still allows free submissions, but has been emphasizing their paid submission service that includes benefits unavailable to sites submitted for free. Others are doing or considering the same. And everybody is rocking and reeling from the inclusion of pay-per-click search engine results - primarily via Overture - into top search engines.

Published: January 7, 2002

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Lawrence Schoeffler is Vice President of Dominion Homes Web Services and founder of NUMBER1EXPERT. Dominion Homes Web Services includes Advanced Access, Agent Advantage by Homes.com, and Best Image Marketing, and is a division of Dominion Enterprises. Advanced Access is the industry leader in agent websites. More agents invest in an Advanced Access website than any other. Agent Advantage is the official agent website service of Homes.com, one of the most popular real estate portals in America. NUMBER1EXPERT by Best Image offers America's Top Performing Web Sites, with traffic and leads unequalled in the industry, sold exclusively to Top Selling Agents. Email Lawrence at .