Buying Catalog Listings

As opposed to search engines, which are purely machine indexed, catalog services are web-pages in which a human editor picks out and categorizes the listings.

For users this can mean that the catalog services return qualitatively better sites than the search engines (where everything is indexed). At the same time, there are some catalog services that seem more concerned with collecting money from advertisers than offering users quality service. This is the kind of catalog service people stop using - and therefore there's no point advertising there either.

While search engines are usually international, catalog services are more often national. If a particular catalog service is dominant in the national market, it would be advantageous to advertise there.

Purchasing a listing in a web catalog functions in different ways, depending on the catalog service. Some kinds of catalogs offer a free listing for thematic pages, but take fees for business listings. Other catalogs work just like the Yellow Pages: You can buy a listing under a given business area (or several) in addition to a generic listing if someone searches for your company name.

The most widely used catalog on the web is perhaps Yahoo!. If your site is not already listed here, it would probably be worth paying the fee to get a quick review and a listing. If you supply quality content (and not just commercial information) you should also try to get a listing in the Open Directory Project. This is the catalog that supplies catalog listings to Google. Listing in the Open Directory Project is free, but you have to write a good application about why your site deserves a listing.

If you do not like the idea of using money without knowing exactly what you're getting in return, you should check out pay-per-click advertising, in which you pay only for clicks on to your site. Or think about search engine optimization, which improves your listing in organic listings (content free-text searches) on search engines.