Niche Search Engines

[honestman]

I have read a lot about how niche or specially search engines are somehow better than the mainstream engines. Firs of all I am not sure why this is since the mainstream SE's have all kinds of categories. With that in mind please explain the benefit of being listed in a niche engine.

Searching Google to find niche engines has been disappointing because for the most part what I find is not reverent to web sites and web site tools which is my product and what my articles are about or all I find is articles tell me how great niche search engines are. Please help with this.
Also if you know of any niche endings in the them of my site mentioned earlier if this is something that is actually worthwhile

[beu]

The term for these engines is "vertical". Depending on your industry, there may be little value in being listed when compared to the cost of your add.

Some of these engines don't allow Google to index their content and for that reason the resuts are poor.

[honestman]

I will not go with this direction after reading wha tyou said but are there niche directories? If so are they of any value

[beu]

Originally Posted by honestman

I will not go with this direction after reading wha tyou said but are there niche directories? If so are they of any value

Please don't get me wrong, either one and/or both may provide value depending on your specific industry!

[Marcia]

Niche directories can send some quality, targeted traffic, but vertical search engines are definitely a hit and miss affair. I remember back to the day when they'd be submitted to by people offering hundreds or thousands of submissions for $29.95 a month and folks had to make sure to use throw-away email addresses to evade the harvesters.

There probably are a FEW good ones, but discretion would always be the best way to go. This is one of the instances where traffic stats and PR would be valuable metrics to look at.

[Northie]

With Google CSEs vertical search could become much more mainstream

Being listed in one is a good idea (as long as you don't have to pay for it) because the results returned are all on the same theme, regardless of the search term