Advertisers will also flock to search portals that are industry-specific, as they appreciate unique benefit of reaching a very targeted audience who have a higher likelihood of purchasing their product or service.

Consider niche search engine, Alarm Tools - http://www.alarm-tools.net . The traffic this portal attracts will be of significant interest to manufacturers of security equipment or emergency supplies. Imagine targeted traffic that an alarm company could receive from a link in above search directory.

Comtemplate quality traffic a financial planner could glean from an RSS search directory focussed on finance and investing at http://www.finance-investing.com .

Locating topic-specific search engines is not all that difficult. Consider using resources provided by Search Engine Watch, Web Search Engines, and Search Engine Guide to locate engines that are topic-specific:

Search Engine Watch - http://searchenginewatch.com/links/article.php/2156351 Web Search Engines - http://www.web-search-engines.net/directory/topic-specific.html Search Engine Guide - http://www.searchengineguide.com/searchengines.html

Qualified 'clickers' or interested buyers is what it is all about; whether you are selling a product or advertising, more targeted traffic better fit. As an advertiser, consider topic- specific search engines. As an online marketer, consider creating a niche search portal, as market is ripe.

What about Price and Quality of Service?

There is more to discuss here besides speed of connections. Take price for one. Cable and DSL connections are both going to be more expensive than dial-up. But, DSL seems to be cheaper of two at moment. You can get a good DSL internet connection for about $35 - $45 per month. Cable modem will cost you about $45 or $50 (this price may be included in a cable TV package). These prices, however, are really close and they change almost from month to month.

DSL is nice because you can talk on phone and be online at same time. In addition, business-level DSL service provides guaranteed data rates, so your connection speed is never a surprise. On other hand, DSL speed tends to decrease further you are away from data center, and it is typically not as widely available as Cable. Cable speeds are not dependent on distance from data center, and is occasionally cheaper than DSL when included in a cable TV rate. A cable modem, however, may require costly professional installation, and there may exists some limitations on downloads and uploads. All of these factors should be taken into consideration when choosing either broadband service.