October 9, 2006 It seems that Yahoo!’s organic listings include not only «relevant» results (and I use quotes for a reason), but they also show a Pay-Per-Click service.

Through Search Submit Express you can submit your listings for consideration to appear in algorithmic search results powered by the Yahoo! search engine. —Yahoo! in reference to the Search Submit Express Service

You can read the full details here.

This means that being relevant is not good enough for Yahoo!, because not only does someone who pays money have the option of a sponsored result, but if you would like to pay a little less, but more than nothing, you can also get results from the area that should be reserved for the organic listings.

No bidding. Listings generated automatically based on the relevance of your page content to search terms. —Yahoo! in reference to the Search Submit Express Service

If this were the case (relevancy matters) then why should I have to pay anything at all?

So how is this fair? It’s not. Actually, according to the FTC, there is a chance that this practice is illegal. You see, if there is a section for organic listings, and it is laced with paid inclusion results, and there is nothing in that area stating that the listings may be of a paid inclusion sort, that goes against FTC Guidelines in the matter.

Complement your sponsored search campaign and extend your reach by capturing leads from algorithmic search results. —Yahoo! in reference to the Search Submit Express Service

So I will indeed get more leads from this service? But how will I get more leads if I don’t get any higher rankings? According to these guidelines, and the Yahoo! search submit express page, paying for this service does not result in better rankings. I’ll tell you about my proof, but first consider this: if it does not provide higher results, then there is absolutely no benefit to pay at all. Why would you have to pay per click in an area that is reserved for the regular listings anyway? There would be no benefit for the person paying, or the search engine. The search engine would not make money as a site that was not listing in the first place would do no better. And the person paying (and there is an initial fee) would not get any clicks because they were not listing highly anyway. Unless this is not the case. I am working now, and have worked on sites, a great number of times with this service. The unfortunate truth is that once included, the results are indeed much better. As soon as we stop those listings, the rankings drop as well. We opt the customer back in, they get rankings again. Odd.

But, it is difficult to really complain as this is indeed the game that we play, and the search engines make all the rules. I do feel that this is a little misleading and unfair to those that have very relevant and important sites that may not get ranked because they aren’t giving Yahoo! money. Hopefully this will help you understand a bit more about Yahoo!, and some of the reasons that your rankings are the way they are.

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