Overture Buys Fast Search

generic-man writes "Hot off the heels of buying Altavista, Overture today announced it would buy Fast Search. Fast Search, a Norwegian company which manages AllTheWeb.com, will get $70 million in cash with up to $30 million in performance bonuses over the next three years. The deal is expected to close by April."

Comments

With all that $$, why not buy Google?

[LiftOp]

I mean, no one said it's for sale, but if you buy all the little companies that are running distant second to Google, and put them together, don't you get one big company that's running second as well?

I mean, if I want the Ferrari, and I've got the dough, I don't get six or seven Chevys and consider myself the coolest kid on the block.

I'm sticking with google.

[blair1q]

I just tried a few searches at Overture, and every one stacked what looked like product placements at the top of the responses. And in fact this notice introduced the results pages.

It looks as though they're buying the underperforming search sites for their paid customer lists, which they offer to other search sites that take placement graft.

They're not a search technology company. They're a search-result astroturf company. Their business model is selling ad space camouflaged as content.

The internet is not secure as either a medium or a message.

Re:i wonder

[chundo]

Before Google was started it was assumed that internet search was either "a solved problem or not very interesting". Google proved them wrong; why is it inconceivable that another company could beat out Google now?

You don't need a bubble to keep you afloat if you've got a useful product and a good business plan. The fact that the .com bubble has burst doesn't mean that everyone should stop exploring viable online business opportunities.

-j

Pigeons away!

[alaric187]

But do they have the advanced pigeon technology of Google yet?


I think not.

Re:Wow!

[stripmarkup]

I used to work for a search engine company that was acquired by Yahoo and now I work for another one. Here's the deal:

Most businesses need leads from the yellow pages and other standard means of advertising. The amount of business that they get from leads coming from search engines has been increasing steadily over the years. The problem is that nobody will find you in a search if your site has not been crawled, or if it appears beyond the third or fourth page in the results. There are Search Engine Optimization (SEO) companies that "optimize" your site for a fee so that it appears more relevant to search engines.

Obviously, search engine companies don't like this and developed anti-spam techniques to block as much of it as possible. If you are running a serious business and $100/year or so guarantees a decent placement in a major search engine, it's definitely worth it. For bigger markets (porn, for example), businesses are willing to pay more to get an edge over their competitors. Look at the Yellow Pages (an extremely profitable business) for an older example of this model in action.