New pay-for-listing by Yahoo sparks debate over search
雅虎新的付费搜索收录系统引发争议

Sun Mar 14, 8:41 AM ET 

(中文大意)
       雅虎本月宣布，其新的搜索引擎将使用数据库付费收录系统，向网站收取多达49美元的服务费以及当用户每次点击这些网站的网址登录时还要收费。

　　雅虎坚持声称，上述系统旨在吸引更多的网站成为雅虎付费搜索服务的客户，雅虎女发言人迪亚娜-李(Diana Lee)表示：“据估计互联网上大约有100亿到1000亿个网页，而最好的搜索引擎现在仅收录50亿个网页，所以还有大量的信息没有收录进来。”

　　对于雅虎的上述举措，分析人士称，好消息是互联网搜索引擎终于想出了赚钱的好办法。但另一方面，坏消息却是一个新的付费搜索收录系统的出炉有可能会导致互联网搜索的完整性受到负面影响。

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The good news is that Internet search engines have finally figured out a way to make money.   

The bad news, at least according to some analysts, is that a new system of websites paying for inclusion in search results could compromise the integrity of Internet searches.

The debate intensified this month as Yahoo announced its new search engine would use a system of paid inclusion for its database, charging websites as much as 49 dollars plus a per-click fee when users go to the site.

Yahoo insists this system is aimed at capturing more sites that may turn up in traditional "crawling" and that the payment system would not guarantee a higher placement in search results.

"It's estimated that there are somewhere around 10 billion to 100 billion Web pages, and the best search engines crawl about five billion, so there is a lot of information that is not captured," said Yahoo spokeswoman Diana Lee.

Lee said paying to be in the database would not mean a higher ranking in results -- which is critical because many users look only at the first handful of results after a search.

"There's a clear iron wall," Lee said. "Paying for this service is not paying for placement. It does not change how a site ranks in the search results."

Forrester Research estimates search engines will be able to collect some 5.6 billion dollars in marketing spending by 2008, including 502 million in paid inclusion. Another major source of revenue is so-called paid-placement, or separately marked ads that appear in response to search terms.

Phillip Robinson, founder of the OpenMinds.us Internet service, said the paid inclusion plan means "now you can't trust the results."

"A site has a high ranking? That could mean it has been influential enough to be linked to from all over the Web, or it could mean that it is a big time-wasting, low-quality, misleading dump of a site that just happened to have enough money to write a big check to Yahoo," Robinson wrote in a recent column.

"And you can't tell which it is because they're all mixed together. Naturally Yahoo management claims this will make results 'more relevant.' Sure. More relevant to their own wallets."

Google, which is now competing against Yahoo after being dropped as the underlying search engine, maintains that it takes pains to keep the paid and unpaid listings separate.

"We take that very seriously we always separate search results and advertising and always clearly and honestly label the ads as ads, unlike some of the competition," says Jonathan Rosenberg, vice president of Google products. "You can't buy your way up the Google search index."

Ask Jeeves spokeswoman Colby Zintl said its site eliminated a paid inclusion system with a cost-per-click as unworkable.

"When you combine (paid and unpaid), there's no real way to rank them," she said.

But she said Ask Jeeves, which holds about three percent of the search market, still allows websites to be included in its database for a fee.

"These are actual, organic websites who are simply paying to shorten the amount of time it takes for our engine to find and crawl their sites," Ask Jeeves said in a statement.

But some analysts say Yahoo and others using paid listing will have to guarantee the integrity of the results to keep its customers.

Analysts note that the system of "crawling" -- analyzing web pages for links, and following those links to other sites, and so on, has some limitations, making it hard to access all the information on the Web.

"Yahoo has the incentive to make sure that the results are as relevant as possible -- so they can gain little if they discriminate against crawled listings and favor feed-included (paid) listings," said Forrester's Charlene Li. "The user will find the results less relevant and go to other search engines in the future."

"Yahoo says there is no preference, and you have to believe them," said Chris Sherman of Searchenginewatch.com, who adds that the Yahoo system runs the risk of drawing fire from consumer groups or US regulators if the company fails to adequately disclose the payments.

But he said he expected the search results to be untainted.

"If they do (discriminate), they would be in serious trouble," he said. "Without that trust, Yahoo doesn't have a business."