■20 percent of Web users completely give up when unable to
find what they are looking for; the rest will try another search
engine.To register your event, visit each of the search engine Web sites
and follow their instructions closely. This will help ensure inclu-
sion. For those who want to stay ahead of the market and on top
of the search engine list, there is a way to be guaranteed to be
among the leaders, by paying for your ranking. Google, GoTo, and
AltaVista, to name a few, all offer this new option. Visit
http://www.google.com, http://www.goto.com,andhttp://www.al-
tavista.com.This means that when a user performs a search using
specific search terms, the results will be shown in descending or-
der according to the price paid per click. As the marketer, you
would choose certain keywords or phrases that you would like to
have ranked. Your bid would be for a price that you would pay
each time someone clicks on your selection. Note that each site
has very specific conditions to follow to be included in the bid-
ding. So observe those carefully if you want your bid to be ac-
cepted. Also, as the number of search terms expands, so will the
bid price, and your link could be bumped by a higher bid.
There are many who dislike this practice because it edges out
the individuals with less money and hides the true search results.
This can cause confusion to certain customers.Some of the most popular search engines:
■About(http://www.about.com)
■AltaVista (http://www.altavista.com)
■AOL(http://www.aol.com)
■Ask Jeeves (http://www.ask.com)
■Excite(http://www.excite.com)
■Go.com(http://www.go.com)
■HotBot(http://www.hotbot.com)
■LookSmart(http://www.looksmart.com)
■Lycos (http://www.lycos.com)
■MSN(http://www.msn.com)
■WebCrawler (http://www.webcrawler.com)
■Yahoo! (http://www.yahoo.com)68 Chapter 3 Electronic Event Marketing Strategies