Search engine marketing... Only for the rich!

The foundations of search engine marketing have changed, and are continuing to change, very fast. This is nothing new, search engine marketing have always been a quick changing market, but now it’s not just the techniques, but more the matter of having the money to get the top positions. Just two years ago, there were numerous alternatives for the hobbyist web master to get good rankings in the ten most important search engines and directories, without having to spend a penny more than their time. During the last year we have seen how all this has changed.

Today's buzzwords in the SEO business are pay-per-click engines, express submittals and paid directory listings. They all grasp over the same thing, getting paid to deliver the goods.

What does all this mean for the World Wide Web? Although it's still easy to find the old hobbyist web sites that used to materialize the Internet as we know it. The web sites that gives us the information we search after. The web sites created by the people that deliver and share the knowledge we don't have ourselves, without asking for anything in return. All home grown specialists that inform us for the fun of it... will they disappear? I think that in the future it will at least be a lot harder to find them.

Right now, only Google, Direct Hit, the Inktomi sites(when they only use Inktomi’s database) and All The Web among the major search engines, and Open Directory (DMOZ) among the major web directories are what I would call non-commercial (not ad wise… but to get a listing there you wont need more than a web site and the time it takes to optimize your site and submit it). My views of what is and what isn’t commercial and the way the different search engines draws their results could of course be questioned. But you can submit your site to these search engines and know that you will get listed based on your content, without having to pay a dime. At the same time the searchers know that the results they get on their search is based on content and not the amount of money that the listed web sites paid to get his/her click. The last blow to the free web world was last week's announcement from Yahoo that they will start with an annual fee for their search directory submittals.

Alta Vista, the classical search engine, which used to be the search engine top dog, and used to have the most relevant results, seems to be on a long and steep fall downwards. Their search index is no longer updated the way it was. To get fast included into their index they now offer a fast submit... fee based of course. GoTo became a pay per click search engine and changed their name to Overture. Looksmart has been fee-based for a long time and if the trend stands, money obviously will do the talk in the future.

What does all this mean for the information hunting web surfer? First and foremost you need to be a specialist on search-engines to even know in what kind of index you are searching... if the position on the search result is money based or content based, if the listing have been bought or if its placement is based on quality and content.

What will happen to the Webmasters of the free web sites that offers so much free information? All their income might depend on a few ads that don't even pay the hosting and the domain name fees. When they start seeing the traffic to their sites slowly fade, and they find that it's because the commercialised web no longer wants to deal with the small fishes. Somehow I feel that their inspiration to give their special knowledge for free will fade. In addition, what will happen to the Internet if all that's left are places to buy things and web sites with fee-based membership sites.

In the end I think the effect will be a fatal blow for the Internet as we know it... people will flee. The already scarce advertisement incomes on the internet will vanish and instead of being the global way of communication and exchange, the World Wide Web will change to a place for those that already have the needs to find that information elsewhere.

I might be too pessimistic, but you have to admit that the fears are real.

The solution? I have no solution... and as it is, my doomsday look is still somewhere above the horizon. As I stated earlier, Google and a few others still holds the candle, but what happens if the last "free" search engines blow out that candle. It's true that there are many small free search engines and that one of those might step up and light a new candle. However, it's hard to say if anyone of them can ever match the great Google index within a viewable time frame... but as we all know stranger things have happened.

Am I to negative? Is this the only way things can go? Will the small guys find themselves in the cold? What are your views on this subject, please give me your thought. I look forward to some more optimistic views.

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Author Notes:

Jan Nordlund contributes and publishes news editorial to http://www.jannowebsolutions.com. The place to turn to for a successful Internet presence.