Tim - 7:31 am on Mar 8, 2004 (gmt 0)

I have a few more answers to questions in the previous thread. I do not want to take this thread off topic as I think this is a pretty interesting discussion about the value of P4P listings versus SiteMatch. I will talk to the people at Overture and figure out what they think and post an answer soon.

Q. What will happen to my Inktomi paid inclusion listings?
A. You have the option of continuing your current Inktomi Search Submit subscription until the end of its term or migrating earlier to Site Match. If you choose to continue your Search Submit subscription, your URLs will appear until the end of your term on portal partners that were previously powered by Inktomi--we're delivering the value promised by the Search Submit program. As a bonus, your URLs will also appear in Yahoo! Search results until April 15th. Note that feed-based customers may continue participating in the full network of portals, including Yahoo!.

Q. Does Site Match require both a per-page, per-year fee and a cost-per-click?
A. Site Match has a much lower up-front cost (less than 1/3) than the 3 programs it replaces: Inktomi Search Submit, AltaVista Express Inclusion, and FAST PartnerSite PFI. One concern with the old programs was that some sites paid upfront and then got relatively few clicks (a common scenario for very specialist sites). This resulted in the service working out to be quite expensive on an effective cost-per-click basis. The new cost-per-click pricing is more equitable in that it scales with the value the program provides to each participating site. In addition, we offer a range of budgeting options that allow content providers to cap their spend at whatever levels they are comfortable with. Finally, and most importantly, cost-per-click pricing helps ensure a high quality user experience. Cost-per-click pricing motivates content providers to submit only relevant content (no one wants to pay for an irrelevant click), further improving the quality of the search experience for users. Without CPC pricing, content providers have no incentive to provide high quality content and avoid gaming the system.

Q. What happens when I stop paying for Site Match clicks?
A. When you deactivate a URL in Site Match (discontinuing payment for clicks), you forgo all the value-added services offered by the program. If your URL was of acceptable quality and was previously discovered by the crawler, then it will still be included in the index. If the crawler has not discovered the URL it will not be included in the index after you deactivate it. However, as soon as the URL is discovered by our free crawler, it will be included. The free crawler does not discriminate in any way based on a web site's prior participation in the Site Match program.

Q. Will Yahoo! Search results favor sites that pay for the Site Match program?
A. Absolutely not. Payment is not for placement or ranking in search results. Our focus is on delivering the highest quality search experience on the web. As a result, all web pages are algorithmically ranked in the results based on their objective relevance to each specific search query in order to ensure the highest quality search experience for users.

Q. Is Site Match an advertising program?
A. Site Match is not advertising. Site Match is an optional program through which content providers receive an additional level of service from Yahoo!. Unlike forms of advertising (television, print media, yellow pages, Pay-for-Performance search, etc.), by no means do content providers have to pay to have their sites included in the Yahoo! index. In fact, over 99% of our index is from the general (free) crawl; this is consistent with our mission to discover and index all of the content on the Web for free. Site Match simply provides a superior level of service: ensured inclusion, frequent refresh, quality review, detailed reporting, and support when problems arise. If you’ve been frustrated by past search engine updates, Site Match offers a way to interact with us more closely and take some of the guesswork out of search participation.

Q. Why should content providers trust Yahoo! Search?
A. With our recent launch, we're the new kids on the search technology block and we know it. That's why we're going to work especially hard to reach out to the content provider community, maintaining this dialog and being as forthright and consistent as we can. It’s the best way we know to build trust.

Q. If customer service and communication are key benefits of Site Match, why hasn’t initial communication about the program been better?

A. Site Match replaces three programs: Inktomi Search Submit, AltaVista Express Inclusion, and FAST PartnerSite PFI. All of these “legacy” programs were managed by our SEM partners. As such, aside from our press release and information on the Yahoo! and Overture sites, we had to rely on partners to communicate about the new program.

As is typical with any new product, we did not release detailed information about the program to the market prior to launch. However, we did provide partners with communications about the future of legacy programs and a notice that mentioned the forthcoming release of the new program. Judging by customer response to those communications, many people saw them.

Since the program launched, partners have provided detailed communications to their customers, by email and/or on the partner sites. We’re confident that all of our resellers are working hard to provide clarity and excellent service. Some have undoubtedly been overwhelmed by the response to Site Match. Please contact your reseller or let us know (sitematch@overture.com) if you have further concerns.