America Online Inc. will turn to Google Inc. to provide search technology and targeted paid listings on its different properties, the company announced Wednesday.
The multi-year deal calls for AOL to deploy Googles search engine on its AOL and CompuServe Internet services and AOL.com and Netscape.com Web properties, starting this summer.
In conjunction with the search engine, Mountain View, Calif.-based Google will also provide AOL with a targeted paid listings service. That provides separate results to a search that advertisers pay for based on keywords.
The paid listings, which are placed by Googles advertisers, will show up on AOL and AOL.com immediately. Theyll launch on CompuServe and Netscape in several weeks, AOL officials said.
The exclusive arrangement allows Google to supplant Overture Services Inc.s (formerly GoTo.com) pay-for-performance search services at the AOL brands. Overture currently provides pay-for-performance searc services for the search engines for Yahoo, MSN.com, AltaVista and Lycos/HotBot.
Googles own search engine site has been singled out in the past by consumer advocates as doing a better job than the Overture sites of indicating which results were paid listings and which were not.
Google replaces Inktomi Corp.s search engine at AOL.
Bob Pittman, COO-elect of AOL Inc., in Dulles, Va., described Google in a statement as the “reigning champ of online search.”
“Google shares our strong consumer focus, and by leveraging their technology and experience we can make the AOL service and our other America Online brands an even more central and valuable part of our members daily lives,” said Pittman.
Inktomi officials, in Foster City, Calif., said their company will continue to provide caching and content delivery software to AOL and that the loss of the search contract was not expected to impact the companys revenues. A company spokeswoman said the AOL search contract represented less than 10 percent of Inktomis total revenues.