The future of search engines

Search engines... how will they index sites in future?

[ace_w]

I have recently read about folks who claim that in the near future search engines will index sites only after the site owner will pay a fee. Is that so? What do you think? My guess is search engines which will go for it will lose important useful sites that visitors need.

[agerhart]

ace_w,

Quite a few of the search engines already do this. A few of the search engines and directories that require a payment for inqlusion (PFI) are:

- Yahoo! (directory)
- Inktomi (search engine that powers MSN and AOL [as of 6/25/02])
- Some sites get into the database for free, but not all
- Teoma
- Ask Jeeves
- Lycos stresses their PFI program, but there is a free submission option

<added>

You may also want to check out this recent thread on the topic:

PFI is a failed business model [webmasterworld.com]