That's kind independence and power you give yourself, when you're not totally dependent on any one entity. Find alternative ways to attract traffic to your website. Here are a few suggestions:

Ezines, newsletters, forums, online magazines, sponsor listings on other websites, exchanging links.

Here are a few offline suggestions:

Magazines, direct mail, shopper newspapers, cable television, radio, flyers, hospital newsletters, card decks, trade journals and directories, bulletin boards, tabloid newspapers.

Here's what writer of another e-mail I received had to say:

"Wow! What a pleasure to read your article, Googles Trap, DMOZ's Nap, And Yahoo!'s Crap. Boy, I've been complaining about this type of scenario for at least a year. I will also include Overture with terrible trio. Overture has recently, with long standing pay per click program, decided that all your keyword phrases will be broad matched. The reason they gave was that it was too time consuming for user to manage their listings. Well, they forgot to mention that they will also receive more money because of change.

Also, they say that you can enter words in quotations or negative words against your keyword phrase so that you receive correct response. In other words, your keyword phrase will not show up when those negative words are searched for. Well, do you know how time consuming negative word process is? And, there's no way you can muster up all of possible negative words that could be searched for so that your listing will not appear. Absolute CRAP, to term your expression. The terrible trio you mention in your article plus Overture have gradually swung towards "God" like service providers. They have power and user is very much at effect. Well, that's my 5 cents worth. After saying all of above I am a user of these services but have been working for a long time now finding other ways and means of marketing and promotion so that all of our eggs are not in one basket. I have, in main, been exchanging links with other websites plus placing relatively inexpensive ads on websites that have similar services to ours."

I love getting e-mails like that! That tells me that some of you are finally starting to "get it."

Give yourself power! Claim your independence! Find alternative ways to attract traffic to your website. If you do that, one day you'll realize you really don't need search engines after all. I guarantee it!

Dean Phillips is an Internet marketing expert, writer, publisher and entrepreneur. Questions? Comments? Dean can be reached at mailto: dean@lets-make-money.net

Visit his website at: http://www.lets-make-money.net

· Able to motivate others · Clearheaded · Clear-sighted · Committed to achieving excellence · Demands excellence · Full of character · Has good judgment · Has a wonderful stress-free life already · Highly perceptive · Lives up to her or her potential · Life-long learner · Sts high standards for themselves · Stays on track · Strives for perfection · Strives to excel · Takes initiative · Motivated to achieve

Okay, good start. Now, let’s begin to put all this together. Let’s zoom in on one of these: strives to excel. Let’s narrow down further to one word: excel.

Look up word excel in a synonym finder, thesaurus or my preference, Flip Dictionary and you find following keywords that you can add to your keyword list: best, better, exceed, outclass, outdo, out rival, outstrip, shine, star, superior, surpass, take cake, transcend, dominate, tower above, be head and shoulders above, stand out in crowd, hold sway, lead, take lead, lead pack.

The list can go on, however, will stop here because point is made.

After this, you could let your fingers travel through thesaurus and then add those words.

Alternatively, you could continue your list by visiting a few of your competitor’s web sites and see what keywords they use. You do this by visiting their home page, right clicking mouse on page, and select "view source." In HTML code look for "keywords." These are keywords they use for search engines to find them.

You will want to specifically focus on competitor web sites that appear in first ten spots on one or two major search engines, like Google.

Next, select another method from your list of resources and continue until you feel you have enough right words.

After completing your list, you will want to review and place keywords in priority order as best possible and eliminate any words that might be misleading. If you market globally, make sure none of keywords mean something offensive in their language.