• by Masha Geller , July 7, 2003

Two announcements on the wires show just how serious major portals are about search marketing.

The first one comes from MSN, which today announced that its has expanded its international search distribution relationship with Overture Services, Inc. Overture has extended its existing paid placement search agreement to provide search results to users of MSN Search in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan and South Korea through December 2004. The original agreement was set to expire in December 2003 and is separate from the company's existing distribution agreements covering the international MSN Web sites, which also run through December 2004. At the same time, both the MSN Search and MSN site agreements have been expanded to include Overture's recently launched Italian operation, as well as territories Overture plans to enter by the end of 2003, including Spain, the Netherlands and certain Scandinavian markets.

The second announcement comes from MSNBC.com, which is the first news site to tackle search with the help of Sprinks, which operates one of the Web's largest networks of content-targeted sponsored links. Under terms of the distribution deal, Sprinks will be the exclusive provider of sponsored paid links on MSNBC.com and Sprinks customers will be able to place ads in all MSNBC.com's sections including Health, Travel, Technology/Science, Sports, Business and Living.

These two agreements just might get people talking about which search approach is best.

In a nutshell, Overture's search listings are generated by advertisers who bid for placement on keywords relevant to their business. The company's editorial team then screens these listings before they are distributed to Overture's partner network, which includes some of the Internet's most popular destinations.

Sprinks, on the other hand, makes advertisers bid for premium placement of sponsored links on editorial pages and email newsletters by topic, which company officials say allows them to deliver "highly-targeted ads that make absolute sense in the context of the page itself," not just matches keywords.

The jury's still out on which of these works best, but both are worth a look.