Although terms were not disclosed, Santa Clara, Calif.-based Netramind's search technology and accompanying staff will be integrated into Waterfront. The deal also creates Waterfront's first overseas hub, as Netramind has a satellite office in Mumbai, India. Ani Kortikar, the firm's co-founder and CEO, will join the Waterfront team as vice president of search technology.

According to Ben Wolin, CEO and co-founder of Waterfront Media, the rationale for building out the company's search practice through acquisition (as opposed to simply hiring a search firm) was simple. "We'd outsourced that function in the past, but couldn't pass up the opportunity to bring in a team of more than 25 people to focus 100% on our site," Wolin said. "To be able to build up the expertise and competency internally instead of working in a client/agency relationship was clearly a more valuable proposition."

Wolin said that in time, Waterfront would also apply the team's SEO services to partner sites within the Everyday Health network, like the official South Beach Diet site and Meredith's Diabetic Living magazine. But the first order of business will be to start optimizing keyword and content structures on the more than 300,000 pages of content on Waterfront's flagship site, www.EverydayHealth.com.

With nearly 15 million monthly uniques, Everyday Health is the second most heavily trafficked health Web site according to comScore, behind only WebMD. But in an increasingly crowded market of properties like Time Inc.'s newly relaunched Health.com and MSN Health, fighting for a share of the health-conscious consumer's eyeballs (and the related ad dollars) has become more challenging. Wolin said that having an in-house SEO squad was just one more way for the Everyday Health network to separate itself from the pack.