Over past year I have often joked that Search Engines dictating how web sites are built. And, now I look at it with less and less humor. Doesn't anyone else have concerns about this? Web Site Owners are paying Webmasters a small fortune in pursuit of high Search Engine Rankings. Search Engines have a penalization process for web sites not in compliance with their dictates. And, with exception of benefit of keeping a lot of people employed I see less and less of Search Engine dictates as fair and reasonable.

Countries world wide fought against Microsoft monopoly. Citizens in this country do not often tolerate anyone controlling their conduct in any way. But, world wide it seems as though everyone is jumping to follow Search Engine Dictatorships. And do so without concern for fact that these dictatorships may be responsible for negative impact upon income and/or business success.

Have we become such sheep that we allow ourselves to be herded by corporations that dictate how we must conduct ourselves to make them money? Even web sites that are non-comformative to government are comformative to Search Engines dictates. I mean, isn't it ridiculous to allow a Search Engine to have so much control?

Compare a Search Engine to Telephone Book. The Phone Company lists everyone business that wants to be listed in their Yellow Pages. And if you have cash, you can get an enhanced listing. It's pretty standard. Everybody gets at least basic listing, alphabetically. Nobody is denied a listing because of association, non-conformity, or product line. But do you realize that you can be penalized and even blocked from holding a listing by a Search Engine? Do you realize that Search Engines dictate how many links, what content is supposed to be, and how many times you can say certain words? Search Engines regulate how soon your site will be listed, quanity and quality of your linkage, and who can even link to your site. Even more disturbing than all of preceeding is way that Search Engines determine relivance of a web site and rank you web site listing by their criteria.

While many marketers are scrambling for links, any links, an area that is often overlooked is topic-specific search engines. What many don't realize is that these engines do produce traffic, and they often contain traffic that is very targeted. Anyone who has taken time to analyze weblogs and track sales sources will likely see that targeted traffic converts at a significantly higher rate than non-targeted traffic.

A savvy online marketer realizes that often, quality of visitor is far more important than quantity of visitors. Web marketers should focus their energies on attracting targeted traffic whenever possible.

For example, if you sell saddles, advertising on a site related to horses or advertising on a topical search engine like http://www.horse-stall.net will bring significantly more sales than advertising on a generic web site or search engine.

Niche engines are considerably smaller than general search engines but they can still be quite lucrative. The small size of a niche or topic-specific engine ensures that there are few competitors, and advertisers are generally willing to pay a little more for focused traffic. Advertisers appreciate unique benefit of reaching a very targeted audience who have a higher likelihood of purchasing their product or service. As a result, topic-specific search engines and directories are a burgeoning market. There is far less competition in niche directories and dominating a specific market segment and establishing brand recognition is significantly easier.