A small industry has even sprung up, promising to help sites improved their ranking in search engines. Search engines and directories themselves are beginning to offer premium listings or expedited handling for a fee. But portals are much less important to the shape of the Web than most people believe. A far greater fraction of visitors come directly from small sites. Many observers have noted that the price of Web advertising has been falling rapidly.
Accurate figures are difficult to obtain, in part because prices are falling so quickly.
Weak demand leads to widespread discounting, and banner ads often sell for a small fraction of the list price. It is quite possible that the falling price of advertising space stems not from weak demand, but from an abundance of supply. The Web is growing rapidly. The number of Web pages on which banners might appear, and the number of Web pages viewed, are ballooning daily. Abundance drives down prices.