jamesf4218 - 1:00 pm on Apr 25, 2002 (gmt 0)

Marcia,

In response to your comments:

~~~Search engine optimization is the long term strategy. With banner ads and PPC, companies pay for each click. If they stop paying, all the clicks stop and they're gone. With well optimized sites the results are enduring with nothing more than some maintenance in anticipation of natural fluctuations. Search engines are here to stay, and the buying public still uses them as the primary means of finding what they're looking for.~~~

you haven't addressed my main points, i.e., there can only ever be 3 people in the top 3 so most people will be disappointed and the more people use seo, the less effective they will be.

I also don't think banner ads work as I myself never click on them and I don't know many people that do.

Search engines may be here to stay, but they need to improve.

I know that you SEOs don't like directories because they use human beings to rank the sites and so the SEO trickery can't get a site in but I do think that the concept of having an engine/directory where each site is previewed and approved by a human being is better than one created by spiders or robots.