Pay-per-call

What's new in Search Technology?

The four major search engines and about a dozen well placed competitors have spent the year collectively inventing, innovating, acquiring, and copying from each other. "A second trend over the past year is the flattening out of Google traffic numbers and the subsequent increases MSN and Yahoo have enjoyed. Today, the combined traffic driven by MSN and Yahoo exceeds that from Google. That might not sound like a huge shift, two years ago however, Google drove almost 85% of organic search traffic by feeding results to practically everyone. For the past year, MSN and Yahoo have created their own spidered results. This has led to a relevancy challenge between the major search engines." Webpronews June 23/05.

At one time you could list in search engines for free, but then the search engine companies began to charge for each listing. With profit as the bottom line many smaller search engines were brought out by larger ones to result in about 4 major search providers, Google, MSN, Yahoo, and Ask Jeeves. For the last two years, web page owners, in order to gain an advantage had to use pay per click or Google word ads, all costing additional moneys. A pay per call listing enables users of Internet Search Engines to find and call businesses who would otherwise not have an Internet presence.

From the consumer standpoint, it's much easier to call a local business than rely on e-mail to ask details about pricing, programs and product availability. People traditionally have used the yellow pages to call someone when they need them, now they can do it off the web. The latest and most expensive addition to the field is the pay per call (ranges from $2.00 to $15.00 per call). The business owner bids on a category and receives a generated toll free number which redirects the call to the business phone. The business only pays when a call is made using the provided 800 number.

The Pay per call is in the beta stage now but could become another alternative if you are prepared to pay the expenses. Perhaps when the "local area search engine" is more widely spread this alternative might become more viable to your local business.