InfoSpace, which delivers meta-search results to a network of web search properties including Excite as well other search engines it owns, such as Dogpile and WebCrawler, is getting into the paid inclusion business. It’s entered into a partnership with Ah-ha.com, a provider of online advertising solutions, to launch a paid inclusion program within the next few weeks, the companies announced. The program will provide participating web site owners with the ability to promote their sites within meta-search results, which are the results of searching within other search engine’s results, InfoSpace delivers to search properties.
“Our relationship with Ah-ha not only provides web site owners with a compelling, easy-to-use paid inclusion product and significant new audience for exposure, but it creates a new revenue stream for InfoSpace,” says York Baur, InfoSpace executive vice president, wireline and broadband.
The service, for which pricing has not yet been released, will be competitive with and in some cases, priced less than inclusion rates charged by other engines, says an InfoSpace spokesman. The service will guarantee that if a web site is relevant to a search, the site will come up in search results InfoSpace delivers to the search engines in its network, though order of placement in those results is not guaranteed.
InfoSpace does not have its own database of web sites and, as a meta-search engine, it searches other search engine listings for its results. As such it provides distribution to its network of results it gets from larger engines such as Overture and Inktomi. Those engines deliver results to InfoSpace that are already reflective in some instances of paid placements or paid inclusion. However, points out the spokesman, the Ah-ha/InfoSpace paid inclusion program provides an opportunity for merchants who haven’t paid for inclusion on those larger engines a guarantee they`ll appear in results delivered to engines in the InfoSpace network. And for those who have already paid for inclusion in those engines, the program is another opportunity to further promote a merchant’s web site.
“As search expands, companies are looking to make sure their sites are included in search results. We reach a pretty large audience,” says the spokesman, noting the monthly 21 million unique users InfoSpace reaches via its wired Internet network. “Everyone always talks about what the next killer application is. Right behind e-mail, search is the next widely used Internet service.”
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