The latest buzz in the online marketing arena is of the introduction of Local Paid Inclusion (LPI). No webmaster is clear till now whether this update is just a scam or it has some reality to it which is kept hidden from the online market.

LPI has caused a great uproar among internet marketing companies. The authenticity of it is still not validated; a huge publicity of it was followed by a denial from all the proposed participants. The lines below give a detail of what LPI is, what promises were made in its publicity, and how they are denied now.

Local Paid Inclusion:

LPI is a service introduced by a third party in which the party would offer top ranking to local businesses in the organic search listings for a small fee. The local businesses, which have paid for the service, would find there links right under the paid ads.

Working:

The service would work in such a manner that it would create a premium area at the top of organic listings. Therefore, if you are in the Local Paid Inclusion program, then your URL would appear in the top rank of the first page of search engine results.

During the publicity, it was claimed that this program would be available for local businesses, business chains, distribution channels, and resellers. According to the initial promotion, the program has the support of the three major search engines, namely; Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Further, the thing that makes the authenticity of this program ambiguous is the initial claim the marketing agencies made that the program is not offered directly by the search engines.

Pricing:

Prominent internet marketing agencies did not just stop at explaining the working of the program; rather they also gave the price of services as well. According to the pricing plan, the price of ranking per day at average would be $1.70/day. In addition to that, the price of keyword would be $0.06 per day, which would make the program more effective than PPC marketing.

Denial:

Despite the terrific publicity done in initial days, the program has received a setback, and now all the search engines have denied any part in the program.

Google released their statement denying any sort of association with a program that would enable a site to appear high in organic ranking by paying for it.

Bing also denied any participation in the LPI program that gives any preferential treatment to paid advertisers in organic search results.

Conclusion:

In short, the authenticity of LPI program is still not validated; however, if this program is implemented then it would certainly change the online marketing arena, especially organic search marketing.