mayor - 6:23 am on Jul 3, 2000 (gmt 0)

To generate revenue, I think the search engines could get away with pay per click for e-commerce pages, if they could keep the cost in line with the value of the click. They could charge more for certain high value categories, like mortgages and real estate, and allow the registrant to decide if they want to be included in those high-fee categories.

The GoTo search engine has demonstrated that e-commerce people are willing to pay for traffic performance. But I think the process of registering each page and then bidding and managing the bids is a big pain. I'd be much more willing to just pay a flat pay per click fee while the SE's usual algorithms rank the pages. I'd be willing to pay per click if that kept the SE from selling favored ad space and banners to the 'big guys'.

I fully agree that the SE's have to make money to stay in business. Hopefully they will find a way to do so that allows e-commerce sites of all sizes to generate income and make an acceptable profit too. For this whole e-commerce thing to succeed, websites and search engines have to both be winners.