Now I have to pay for web positioning in AltaVista?!?!

Yep. Now you can pay for web positioning in AltaVista. Once a giant in the search engine world, AV now ranks 13th according to the most recent Jupiter Media Metrix study. So is it worth paying for this engine? Good question. Especially considering that there are so many paid engines to choose from.

GoTo is still a great deal if you're not in an ultra-competitive field, Inktomi has benefits, Looksmart is often a good investment for the inclusion into MSN And, of course, there is Yahoo -- a must. So now that #13 is jumping on board as a paid engine, where does the madness end?

Well, don't expect it to end soon. Search Engines have been struggling to make a buck for quite some time and AV, one of the first search engines on the scene, is certainly no exception. The AV paid program is similar to Inktomi, guaranteeing that submitted pages will be spidered weekly and listed in AV's index.

Up to 500 URLs can be submitted, but those submitting that many will pay dearly. The spidering cost for one url is $78.00 per year. Volume submissions are rewarded. Two to ten urls cost $48.00 each; 11-100 is $38.00 each; and 101-500 urls would be $24.00 each. Don't forget one url is not one website. It's one url within a website. So the home page would be $78.00. The home page and a pricing page would be $78.00 + $48.00 for a $126.00 total, and so forth.

The 'sort of' good news is that you can buy spidering in 6-month increments, so one page for 6 months is only $37. But when you compare that to yearly Inktomi prices --$30 for one url, 2-20 urls $15, and 21-1000 urls $12, it's hardly a steal at even half the service.

Danny Sullivan at www.searchenginewatch.com says it best: "More than $1,000 for 25 pages and no guarantee that they will bring in any traffic? Rather than that gamble, it might make more sense to put the money into AltaVista's separate paid listing program or into GoTo listings, which are carried on AltaVista's pages."

Free url submission is still available on AV with a 4 to 6-week timeframe, but free submission for web positioning holds no guarantees. SageRock has opted not to include AV payment into our pricing at this time, although we would be happy to perform the service for anyone highly interested in high spots on AltaVista. While it's still an important engine, we just don't feel the traffic coming from AV (being the 13th most popular as of 7/01) warrants that kind of up-front cash. Spend your web positioning money on GoTo, Yahoo, Inktomi and LookSmart.

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