The results tell me there are only 3 competitors bidding on this term at $0.06, $0.05, $0.05. So, to get a top 3 place as cheap as possible I need to bid $0.06 to get 2nd place, as a $0.05 bid would place me 4th.

Do this for all your search times, listing ones you can get cheaply. You'll find some will be very expensive. The price you bid is what you pay for every click through, so don't get carried away. The minimum bid is $0.05.

Step 3 - Make your bids

First visit account set-up page at:

https://signup.goto.com/s/dtc/signup/

Complete a separate section of form for every search term you're bidding for. You'll need to list search term, title of entry, description of entry, page URL, and bid.

Try to include search term in both title and description and you'll get a much better response. There are full instructions on page.

You pay a minimum monthly fee of $20, whether you receive $20 of clickthroughs or not. So make sure you bid on enough terms. You'll hear back from Goto.com in about 5 days whether or not each bid has been accepted.

You need to check back from time to time to make sure no one has outbid you, in which case you need to decide whether to up bid. You also receive a monthly traffic report by email listing hits on each keyword.

That's basically all there is to it. Remember to be creative with your search terms. For example, a term containing "online" may be out of your price bracket, but one containing "on line" may not.

Be successful!

This is not typically how sponsored listings have worked with other Overture partners such as AOL Search and Netscape Search. The standard approach is to promote first 2, 3 or 4 listings from Overture and discard rest. The consequence of this is there have been major bidding wars for these positions.

On negative front, consumer awareness groups, small business owners and search engine marketers are less than thrilled with this current trend. The arguments range from misleading searchers, to stealing web away from businesses with small budgets, to just being plain lousy results.

The proponents suggest this is beginning of a new viable business model for search engines. The free ride is over.

Either way, deal between Yahoo and Overture expires in April, states an Associated Press article. The article goes on to say, this deal... "can serve as a short-term solution for Yahoo! until it can develop sales force and technical capability to offer paid search listings itself." Full article can be found here: http://www.nando.net echnology/story/169861p-1634746c.html