The Marketleap Report
Volume II, Issue #18, December 4, 2002

Why Inktomi Paid Inclusion Should Be the First Step in all Search Engine Marketing Campaigns
by Keith Boswell

Dragging myself through the desert without water would be a sure start to my demise. Jumping into marketing a website without knowing much about search engines can have the same effect. Online marketers expecting their website to find a wonderful world of opportunities often dry up faster than an imaginary oasis because they didn't plan their search engine marketing strategies wisely.

Professional search engine marketers know that every successful search engine marketing campaign starts with Inktomi Paid Inclusion. It's timely, it ensures deep, up-to-date content is included in the Inktomi index, and within days the marketer has some real data to assess their website's performance.

A marketer should add all of the pages they want found to Inktomi Search Submit quickly so that an initial assessment of the website can be achieved. This is done even before making any changes that may be needed to enhance performance. Inktomi Search Submit scans the Title and Meta-Description tags from the HTML pages in its database every 48 hours. If edits are needed and performed on a website, the impact can be weighed within days rather than months.

Paid inclusion does not affect the ranking of search results, but instead ensures content is presented only when relevant to users. As a result, paid inclusion programs deliver higher conversion rates than other pay-for-performance programs. To date, Inktomi's paid inclusion programs have generated more than 500 million highly qualified sales leads to subscribing content providers.

Paid inclusion allows a website to expose as much of its content to searchers as they choose. Once a website has been added to Search Submit the Inktomi spider only reads the pages that it's given, it doesn't crawl any deeper than it's told to. The keyword and click-through data created from Search Submit can then be used to drive all other search engine marketing efforts. Over time the keyword data will reveal the words and phrases that are successful at generating highly relevant traffic to a website.

By paying to include your website, instead of being crawled, you are exercising control over the exact listings that searchers will find. You also have the added benefit of being re-crawled every 48 hours, instead of having to wait for a once a month update of a free listing.

Those keywords and phrases can then be purchased through pay per click programs through Google, Overture and LookSmart with the knowledge that the terms are successful at creating conversions and therefore worth the investment. They can also be incorporated into content throughout the website in a long-term effort to build a website that attracts visitors and succeeds because it provides relevant content to its market.

Inktomi has recently shed the gloves and turned squarely to face Google in the reign for Web search supremacy. In 2002, Inktomi exited their content networking and enterprise search businesses in order to focus exclusively on Web search. At the end of December Inktomi was purchased by Yahoo, joining forces with the web's original darling. With the purchase by Yahoo, Inktomi stands to become the true player in the search engine world.

Inktomi and Yahoo's new offering will combine the portal model that Yahoo has pioneered with one of the web's leading search technologies built by Inktomi. Inktomi not only has a search engine that competes head to head with Google for relevancy, they've also built a solid model for marketers looking to control their listings and receive valuable data about how searchers are finding them.

Before jumping into free submissions that can be difficult to change or update, Inktomi Paid Inclusion begins driving traffic and delivering data quickly. This invaluable intelligence is why all online marketers should sign up for Inktomi Paid Inclusion and make it the first step for marketing their website in the search engines.

- Yahoo! Acquires Inktomi
- Read More About Paid Inclusion
- Sign-up for the Marketleap Report

Feedback
Any thoughts? We'd love to hear what you think about Google, Inktomi, FAST and others. Tell us about any success or lack of it you've had with being listed in their search engines. Write us at report@marketleap.com and let us know what you think.

Search Engine Optimization 101
Marketleap has created a section of its website including new information for people looking to understand how they can optimize their website to perform better in the search engines. These aren't quick fix tips. Instead they are solid guidelines and best practices taken from our professional experience about important factors your website needs to consider if you want to be listed in the top search engines. Take a look at Marketleap's Search Engine Optimization 101 to learn how to transform your website content into "quality content". http://www.marketleap.com/help/seo101/default.htm