When search engines pay website owners a percentage of the bid cost, you're just looking for trouble. This is the problem with Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising, especially with smaller named search engines. Many websites request or even pay there visitors to search a specific search engine and click on a result. This just sends advertisers fake leads and causes problems for the advertisers that paid for the keyword listing. Many PPC search engines offer webmasters up to 80% of the bid price. For example, let's say I pay 'Example Search Engine' $1 for the keyword Viagra, they then pay webmasters $.80 per visitor they send that searches and clicks on a bided search term. You can see why PPC can be a problem.
Paid Inclusion offers a safer, less expensive form of search engine advertising. You pay one price to have your site listed in a specific search engine, often under a specific keyword. Your site will also be updated on the search engines data base more often then non paid sites. Paid Inclusion costs and average of $25 a year per URL submitted. Plus the cost goes down the more URL's you submit at one time. PPC usually starts at $.01 per click being the cheapest bid per keyword, but you'd be lucky to find a keyword that low that would result in any clicks.
Something to be aware of when advertising on PPC search engines. Although you are paying for your site to be viewed in a search engine, many times your site will show up on other people websites. This is a common practice on both Google and Overture search engines. Advertisers have to opt out of this service if they only want to be shown in the search engine,. In my opinion, this will help reduce fraudulent clicks of your paid search term.
This isn't to say every PPC search engine is bad. For example, Mamma.com offers a fixed price per website category. They then rotate all the websites in a category evenly. Websites big and small get their advertising site seen the same amount of time. Before spending money on a PPC search engine be sure to read how they protect advertisers against fraudulent clicks. This will help make sure you get more for your money.
If there was only a way to eliminate fraudulent clicks in PPC advertising. It would make using this method of search engine advertising well worth the extra costs. After all, you are getting targeted hits to your site by people searching for precise keywords.
Kristian Pulz is the owner of http://www.Links2See.com an internet directory and http://www.barterNsave.com a direct partner of the First Barter Network. He can be reached at webmaster@links2see.com.
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