Yahoo! has combined Yahoo!, Inktomi, Alta Vista, Fast, and AlltheWeb into a single database. They did this to have one large database of Web sites even if there were still some differences between the search engine results. The one key point is that you have Yahoo!, MSN and Alta Vista all pulling search engine results from this single database and together these three sites represent around 50 percent of all the search engine queries that are made across the Internet.

What happened after April 15th? Pretty much what Yahoo! said would happen. Many of the sites that were in the Inktomi database were included in the new Yahoo index for free. It seems if Yahoo! could spider your site it was included in the new index. So there wasn't a need to use the new Overture SiteMatch program. This wasn't across the board, so it's still a bit of a crap shoot.

Free submission to Yahoo!

For lots of sites that are in areas of the country, where there's less competition, the free submission is a good choice. People are seeing their site show up in two to five weeks. This is after multiple visits from the Yahoo spider. If you want to get your site into Yahoo/MSN, here is the URL for the free submission: http://submit.search.yahoo.com

As a reminder you'll be required to create a Yahoo account. This is the only way you'll be allowed to fill out the form. Only submit your home page, which should be linked to your site map. This way the whole site will be spidered. If you can't wait that long, or your geographic area is very competitive on the web, then consider the Site Match program.

Old Inktomi pages

Many of the pages that were in the Paid for Inclusion (PFI) under Inktomi got to be included into the regular Yahoo database without having to upgrade to the new Overture SiteMatch PFI/PPC hybrid. Some were dropped but this seems to be a small number.

There are a number of positive and negative questions as to why pages were included in the new index are as follows:

1. Is the site in the Yahoo Directory, and how long has the Website been in the directory.
2. Is the site in the LookSmart Directory.
3. How long has the URL been in the database.
4. How many non PFI pages were also in the Inktomi/Alta Vista database. This is almost like a reverse PageRank, the number of children lifting up the parent web page.

Here are some of the negative factors:

1. Is the web page a dynamic page, using non-HTML server side technology like ASP, ColdFusion and PHP.
2. Spamming, like the use of tiny text, repeated key phrases, overloaded meta tags. The standard list of search engine no-nos.

What makes this difficult is determining if switching to SiteMatch will make things any better. Where the page ends up, the first results page or nowhere at all, is still determined by the Yahoo! algorithm. If you are doing something wrong, your pages still won't show up for your search phrases.

Overture SiteMatch

Remember that beside the $49 annual fee for the first URL (plus a $50 deposit for click-throughs), there is an additional 30 cents per click through for the real estate category. There is a general feeling that because there is an editorial review that your site will do somewhat better. However, if you have the problems that are listed above you may be wasting your money. However, if you are having a problem, Overture, or the reseller you are registering your Web pages with, can give you advice on how to correct those mistakes.

If you decide to use Site Match here the list of the resellers:

• http://www.positiontech.com/
• http://www.content.overture.com/d/USm/ays/sm.jhtml
• http://ov.ineedhits.com/
• http://www.prioritysubmit.com/
• http://www.infospider.com/
• http://www.marketleap.com/

Your site will be indexed within a short time. It seems to be somewhat under a week. How your site fairs this comes down to using the latest Search Engine Optimization methods. On the bright side this seems to be simpler then optimizing for Google. Put your key phrase in the Title, meta tags and the body of your copy and you have a good shot at being in the first 20 URLs on the Yahoo/MSN SERPs.

What if you are worried about the 30 cents click through charge?. This is where things get interesting. It seems unlike the old Inktomi PFI program if you do use Site Match the regular free Yahoo spider will STILL INDEX the rest of your site. So one way to do this on a budget is to purchase Site Match for your home page. Then the free spider will visit the rest of the site, that's why the site map is so important. With your home page indexed, optimize your MLS and featured listing pages so most of the traffic goes there instead of the home page.

Jordan Glogau has been involved with marketing and sales on the Internet since 1995. He has worked for a number of computer and Internet companies like DEC, Sharp and IDT. He was the President of RegisterFree, a domain name registration company. Has been involved with helping real estate agents and brokers with Web marketing and technology. This includes search engine marketing, linking, strategic planning with real estate portals like Realtor.com, and back-end programming to interface to National and local Multiple Listing Services. Jordan is presently doing Search Engine and Internet Marketing for the real estate industry and can be contacted at Haiku-Marketing or jglogau@phr400.com or 914-262-1749.

Published: May 24, 2004

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