Pay-per-click search engines



The main pay-per-click (PPC) search engines you should concern yourself with are Looksmart, Overture, Espotting and FindWhat.

Pay per click search engines are something of a new phenomenon for internet marketers. To users, they work in exactly the same way as an ordinary search engine. Submitting a site, however, works in an entirely different way:

You choose your best keyphrases with which to promote your site. To be top of the search engine for the phrases you have chosen, you must simply out-bid your opposition. Whoever bids the highest gets first place.

To see how this works, run a search for "data recovery" at the most popular pay-per-click engine, Overture.com (formerly GoTo) by clicking here. Next to each search result is a small link called "cost to advertiser". In the case of "data recovery" the value is $6.85. This means that every time someone clicks the link to the top site in "data recovery", the site-owner must pay Overture $6.85, hence "pay-per-click". Data recovery is one of the most popular and profitable internet searches, hence the extremely high value per visitor.

Less common searches are far cheaper. It would cost you $0.16 to top Overture for the query "role playing games", for instance, and the same price to be top for "news".

There are several advantages of this system for web-site promoters:
  • You can pick the keywords that will find your site in the search engine.
  • Should you choose the wrong phrase and get no visitors, you would not owe Overture anything, because no-one would have clicked through to reach your site. This can be helpful in finding the best keyphrases for your site.
  • Less popular queries often have very low ($0.05/£0.05) or no bids. This means you can be listed at the top of the page with very little expense.
  • You don't have to worry about optimising your site or about your site content to reach the top.


To use the PPC engines to their full effect, you need to monitor your bids carefully and regularly.

Try a professional bid management service


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