Overture Services, Inc., a commercial search service, today announced the launch of the world’s largest search index of approximately 3.2 billion documents. The index was developed by the former Web search unit of Fast Search and Transfer (FAST), which Overture acquired in April.
The expanded index delivers new levels of comprehensiveness, relevancy, and freshness for its index. In addition to increasing the size of the index by over 1 billion documents, the launch features several significant relevance enhancements that will improve the ranking of URLs. These features include a new method of determining how authoritative a page or site is on a specific topic as well as overall page quality.
The release of the expanded index follows Overture’s announcement earlier this summer that AltaVista (www.altavista.com) provides consumers with the largest multimedia index available on the Web today. The AltaVista multimedia index includes approximately 550 million files, with 125 million more audio/video files than the next highest competitor. Overture acquired the business of AltaVista in April.
Earlier in the year, made big news in February 2003 when it announced acquisitions of both one time big fish AltaVista and FAST Search/AlltheWeb. Overture believes that these acquisitions will help move it past paid placement advertising into both a paid search inclusion product and algorithmic search destination. Paid search inclusion, such as what Inktomi offers, is when a site pays a fee to be routinely visited and re-indexed, particularly a plus for sites with dynamic content.
Overture’s FastSearch Wins FreeServe from Google
Pay-per-click search firm Overture confirmed today that it has won a deal to provide algorithmic search results to Freeserve, displacing its number one rival Google.
Overture has been providing paid listings to Freeserve since 2000, but under the new agreement will also provide the algorithmic search results.
Freeserve said that it switched to Overture from Google on the back of evaluation of the relevancy and breadth of results sets offered by both indices.
Overture is determined to rival Google in both paid search advertising and organic search engine results since its acquisition of both FastSearch and AltaVista.
WebAdvantage.net, a full-service emarketing agency, specializing in Online Media Buying & Planning, Search Engine Optimization Services, Pay Per Click Management Services and E-Mail Marketing Strategy.
back to topWeb Ad.vantage is a full-service online marketing company with core competencies in search engine optimization, PPC Campaign Management and online media buying. Visit our Internet Marketing Services section to learn more about our full range of services.
WebAdvantage.net encourages the reprinting of our marketing tips and articles. Before doing so, however, please contact us at for permission to do so. The company bio located above is required to accompany any reprint. Thank you in advance for your professional courtesy.
Subscribe to our blog RSSPragmatic, professional advice with no hidden agenda.
Internet Business Forum
Find out more herePsychographically Targeted Web Advertising
By and large, online advertising has thus far confounded big-brand advertisers to date. With Internet usage only growing, large brands want to exploit the Internet on a similar mass scale that they do offline, but budget allocations haven't yet... read more
U.S. Women and the Internet, Part 2
In my last column, I reviewed how U.S. women currently consume the Internet and, in particular, various online ads. Let's delve a little deeper. Separate studies by Starcom/Tacoda and JupiterResearch/Ipsos show that both men and women click on... read more
Death Does Not Become Your Ad: When Run-of-Network Campaigns Go Awry
It’s unfortunate enough that violence, gloomy economic forecasts and natural disasters now make up our everyday news, but when you’re an unlucky advertiser whose online ad happens to get placed next to such content, chances are, no... read more
