Yahoo-Kimo Inc (
"Searching is not simply a tool to search Web data, but the core of the Internet," David Lu (盧大為), vice president of search and marketplace and deputy managing director for Yahoo North Asia, said at a press conference yesterday. "Each time a user searches, there is a potential business opportunity."
Web-search advertising -- contextual listings, paid inclusion and paid placement -- is considered a hot market for portal operators. Spending in the sector was estimated to reach US$2 billion last year, and expected to grow to US$5 billion in 2006, Lu said, citing a report by MetaGroup Research.
Eyeing the huge market potential, currently led by Google, Yahoo took over search company Overture Services Inc last year, which allows Yahoo to expand its pay-for-performance search business by selling advertising links that accompany search results on its sites.
The function has bolstered income of Yahoo's Web search advertising to 20 percent of the company's total revenue last year. By introducing the system to Taiwan later this year, Lu expects Web-search advertising to become a major money-maker for the company.
The strategy will focus on small and medium-sized advertisers who seek to spend small amounts while expecting instant and large feedback, Lu said, adding this is suited to Taiwan due to the country's large number of small and medium-sized businesses.
In addition to Overture, Yahoo bought several providers of Web-search products including Inktomi Corp, AltaVista, Fast Search and Transfer, 3721 Network Software Co (北京三七二一科技) in China and Carde in Brazil, showing a strong desire to compete with major rivals such as Google, America Online Inc and Microsoft's MSN.com.
According to a report issued by Bloor Research Ltd earlier this month, 32 percent of Web searches in the US are conducted using Google, followed by 26 percent for Yahoo, 18 percent for AOL and 17 percent for MSN.
Yahoo still uses some of Google's search technology, and Lu said the company is considering whether to carry on the partnership as the two companies' contract will be due in the first quarter of the year.
As well as strengthening the Web-search marketing function, Lu said, Yahoo is developing Web-search personalization, which will rank Web sites or Web pages that are highly related to users' portfolios from the sea of search results, Lu said.
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