WebProNews

Ever since whispers about Overture's new paid inclusion product were leaked at last week's WebmasterWorld PubConference, e-Business professionals have been wondering when the service would be officially released.

Overture's Director of Strategic Alliances Dan Boberg announced the wait is over with the official launch of Site Match late last night.

Yahoo, which owns Overture, introduced Site Match as part of its new Yahoo! Search technology. Yahoo strives to discover all online content for free but the company has launched a content acquisition program (CAP) in an effort to bring in commercial and non-commercial data. Yahoo is also in the process of becoming more transparent so its users can better control their index listings on the search engine. This is something that its leading competitor Google has been highly criticized for not doing.

During one session, the question was brought up:

What's the difference between Pay For Inclusion and Site Match?

Answer: With PFP, you are paying for top results, whereas with Site Match you are just paying to be listed in the index.

With Site Match, users pay an annual subscription fee to submit their URLs for review. This does not guarantee inclusion into the Yahoo index; however, Site Match does promise more exposure for users, claiming the sites accepted will reach 75-80% of Internet users and 50% of searchers.

Remember, you heard it here first, folks!

Garrett French is the editor of iEntry's eBusiness channel. You can talk to him directly at WebProWorld, the eBusiness Community Forum.