Yahoo adopts listing fees for certain Web pages

[dArKeR]

By Michael Liedtke
Updated: 12:01 a.m. ET March  02, 2004

SAN FRANCISCO - Internet giant Yahoo! Inc. is adopting a new system for indexing Web pages that will charge businesses to include more material currently unlisted in its online search engine, marking the first volley in a duel with its former ally Google Inc.

Sunnyvale-based Yahoo is touting the approach, scheduled to be announced Tuesday, as a practical way to assure its search engine captures more of the so-called “Deep Web” — the billions of pages that aren’t found during periodic crawls of the Internet.

The method, often called “paid inclusion,” also will help Yahoo’s search engine keep better tabs on the most current material on a Web page, company officials said.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4424623/

[German-Lefty]

1. Some people are concerned with the power of search engines.

Will people be able to find your site, if you don't pay the yahoo or google tax?

I'm not saying this idea is bad, but we should keep an eye out. Personally I think it would be cool if you could tell your search engine you want results from sites that are:
commercial - ie. someone trying to sell you stuff.
academic - ie. university stuff, GNU, stuff people that can't ask you for money
pron - because there is so much of it.

I hate it when I'm trying to look up a financial or economic thing, and I get tons of links to pondsy get rich schemes.