Paid Inclusion engines: general questions

paid inclusion, inktomi, altavista, fast, looksmart, general pi questions

[robyn_99]

I run a small web marketing firm and am contemplating signing up for the various PI programs for two clients, one with a large ecom website (2000 SKUs) and the other for a small site (12 pages).

I'd be interested in hearing some feedback from anyone with Paid Inclusion experience for the various programs (Inktomi, FAST, Teoma, etc) - both for the XML-based programs as well as the self-serve.

I guess the things I'm looking to assess include areas like quality of traffic, volume, cost, or any other things I should be thinking about. Any insight would really be appreciated.

Regards,
Robyn

[percentages]

robyn_99,

PFI is exactly that....if you can't get in the index by any other method...pay to get in.

Reality Check....All engines today will include your site and rank it equally with just one link from a site that gets spidered once per month. There is absolutly no benefit to PFI at all. Get an entry in Dmoz and you just saved yourself a few hundred $$.

In addition I have evidence to show that listings are available in INK at a very deep depth for free when they are not when you use PFI.

My Advice is stay away from PFI altogether.

Get as many good backlinks as you can. That will get you in all engines for free, and do wonders to help you rank higher at Google and Ink.....the only two engines that will count 6 months from now.