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Is this a way of AV forcing me to go for Paid for inclusion?
I doubt that they're trying to force you to a paid listing. I've had a site listed (free) in AV for almost five years, with the exception of late 1999 through mid-2000, when my site got booted along with many other innocent sites during a "cleanup" of their database. This was widely recognized as a screw-up on AV's part, although to my knowledge, they never admitted it. But this is not the cause of your problem. Look for other causes.
Like many other search engines, it is advantageous for inclusion in AV listings to:
There are many other items that could go on this list - these are just the ones you may need to look at most closely. All other basic SEO principles apply to AV as well.
AV just went through a big change from what I can tell. I used to get spidered by AV maybe once a month. But since last month, when AV "rededicated" themselves to being a search engine company, they have been spidering most of my public pages every 24 or 48 hours. Because of the time frame you describe, it is possible that you got your site listed in the old database just before the big changeover. I would strongly suspect this possibility if you have few incoming links (and are lacking other items on the list above) and if you submitted your site to AV through their "Submit a Site" page, rather than letting them find you by crawling the web. If this is the case, address the items in the list, and then re-submit your home page (AV "hates it" if you re-submit too often; Once is enough).
The above is my experience, your mileage may vary.
HTH,
Jim
