Another search engine is entering the pay-for-placement search listings market. LooksSmart Ltd. today rolled out its new Sponsored Listings program which allows marketers to bid for higher placement in search results. LookSmart already offers a paid inclusion product called LookListings that serves 30,000 marketers.
LookSmart will list results from participants in the Sponsored Listings program by calculating the ranking that the marketer wants in the listing and the maximum bid the marketer is willing to pay. It will then reduce the bid to the minimum necessary to achieve the desired ranking, says David Graham, senior product manager for LookSmart.
Marketers will be able to manage both their LookListings and Sponsored Listings accounts from the same interface. “What we think our 30,000 subscriber base values most is one place to buy, build, manage and submit listings,” says Kevin Burke, vice president of product development.
LookSmart offers web users search results at its own LookSmart.com and distributes results to CNET, Road Runner, Cox Internet properties, Mamma.com, Alltel, InfoSpace sites including Excite, WebCrawler, MetaCrawler and Dogpile, as well as to 50 tier two and three Internet service providers.
The new products puts LookSmart in direct competition with Yahoo, which owns Overture, and Google. The company expects to offer Sponsored Listings on a broad basis this quarter, Burke says.
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