Do I need to pay to be listed on Google?

On at least one web hosting web site the company lists “Submission of your Web site to the Google search engine” but only for their higher-priced web hosting packages. I thought Google decided for themselves what to include, and I thought it was pretty much everything in the universe.

It is a scam to charge extra for a Google listing?

It depends what they mean. Most likely, they’ll just go here and enter your site’s URL, a task that you are perfectly capable of doing yourself for free in about five seconds.

On the other hand, they may be talking about placing ads with Google, which obviously costs money, but I doubt it.

Accidental duplicate thread. See the other copy: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=151020