Does all this talk of pay for inclusion have you wondering if it is right for you? Help has arrived in the form of a well written article by Kevin Lee at ClickZ. Among the questions he answers:

- Will I be included without paying?

- If many pages of my site are already indexed regularly (typically once a month), why should I pay for inclusion through Overture’s Site Match?

- If site content (products, inventory, copy, or prices) change regularly, is paid inclusion a good idea?

- Should I include all my pages in a paid inclusion feed or just the “important” ones?

Jupiter Research says in their latest report that spending on email marketing will rise from $2.1 billion to $6.1 billion in 2008 in the US.

Responsible for the increase are dramatic cost reductions, growth of sponsored and acquisition e-mail campaigns and the ever-increasing challenges presented by spam.

Yahoo! added “Web Rank” to its toolbar today.

“Web Rank is the name that Yahoo! has given to a technical measurement of a particular URL’s popularity. If you choose to enable the Yahoo! Web Rank feature on the Yahoo! Companion Toolbar, a toolbar icon will display the Yahoo! Web Rank value of each URL that you visit. The Yahoo! Web Rank values range from 1 to 10.”

A report released today on Alberta’s technology sector says that the technology industry has a “generally positive outlook on the economy.”

Other findings:

- access to capital still a major concern for businesses
- shipment of jobs offshore viewed as opportunity rather than threat
- 34% of technology companies who participated in survery believe offshoring is an opportunity
- many have already benefited from offshoring, either by outsourcing their own processes or by becoming an outsourcing provider

If you want to read the full report you can pull it down in PDF format at www.albertatechreport.com.

Trendsetters Magazine is calling the Internet’s resurgance “Dotcomeback” and says “.com” domain names are still the creme de la creme.

“Beef.com and Truck.com recently sold for more than $100,000 each, while sites like Men.com, which offers a dating service, and Whitehouse.com, a porn destination, are crossing the million-dollar mark, according to Domain Name Journal.

Since a majority of the 83 million businesses tracked worldwide by Dun & Bradstreet have yet to build a Web presence, it’s a safe bet that dotcom domains will remain the Internet?s ritziest address.”

Don’t miss out on the action! 1024Media.com is now officially on the market. First $250,000 takes it!

Today Google took their local search feature out of the laboratory in the US. Now when you add a US town or zip code to your search at Google.com or local.google.com, you will find relevant local information with neighborhood business listings, maps, directions, and useful web pages. Or at least that is what Google is hoping you will find.
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WARNING: The following website may consume hours of your life!

It’s France Telecom’s Yellow Pages site which puts other online maps to shame. Rather than looking at colourful lines and dots, you can take a virtual stroll through 9 of France’s largest cities. Select your city of choice then zoom in to view photos of thousands of buildings.

And if you get bored of France, head down to Spain for a tour of Madrid, Barcelona, Seville or Valencia.

Wondering which search engine listings have been paid for? What’s an advertisement and what’s not? Check out the “Search Engine Advertising Chart” which does a great job explaining the main forms of advertising you may encounter on search engines. Also a good jargon buster because it provides definitions of terms like ‘paid inclusion’.

About.com has put together a short article explaining dayparting and its use with pay-per-click campaigns. We’ve done some dayparting for our clients with great success. But like the article mentions, “dayparting can be difficult to manage… it’s worth testing the idea on a small scale before investing.”

Yes - Test. Test Test.

Today I came across a neat tool called KW Map that can help you discover key words. The chart contains two axes, one of which displays keywords which are different but related to your search keyword, and the other which contains your search keyword.

According to the site:

Using this tool you will be presented with related keywords (eg. ‘car’ -> ‘wind shiled’, ‘formula 1′, ‘bmw’) and keyword variations (eg. ‘car’ -> ‘car parts’, ‘car insurance’, ‘rent a car’).

I tried the key word “modern nomad.”

Thank goodness for that or I wouldn’t have discovered these great Yurts.