GeoCities Taps Inktomi’s Search Engine

Community Web site portal GeoCities
Monday started using search engine technology from Inktomi Corp.

Users will be able to perform both basic and in-depth searches sites inside
the GeoCities network as well as across the Internet.

Under basic GeoCities searches, more than 20 million GeoCities member pages
will be indexed. By typing in words or phrases, users will receive lists of
matching member pages, and Inktomi will also provide rankings of pages
according to relevancy.

The advanced search functionality will conduct searches of Web pages in nine
different languages, including Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German,
Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish. Users can also search for content
by format, such as Java and Shockwave, as well as by file extension.

Other companies using Inktomi’s search technology include Yahoo!, MSN.com, America
Online and @Home. The
company also makes the Inktomi Traffic Server network caching product which
stores popular Web pages on a company’s Web servers, reducing bandwidth
consumption.

“(Users) win because their sites are significantly more accessible and our
advertisers win because this new technology will increase traffic to
our member sites,” said Thomas R. Evans, president and chief
executive officer of GeoCities.

“In addition to better technology, there is a bottom-line business reason
for bringing the search function inside: ad revenue,” said Michael Barrett,
GeoCities’ vice president of advertising sales. “We don’t intend to be in the
search technology business, we are in the ad sales business. Previously we
handed search traffic off to other companies, and the ad space inventory
wasn’t ours to sell. It is now. The search space offers our advertisers very
attractive locations and a highly targeted cost per thousand,”
Barrett said.