The interesting thing is that back in February, Terra Lycos introduced subscription services that included a hosted Lycos-powered search engine and inclusion in the Lycos search-engine database. The company said that paid-for listings in the database would “go incognito.”
I guess they were finally ready to go public.
The portal has teamed up with with FindWhat.com, one of the providers of performance-based marketing services for the Internet (after Overture, Google, and Search 123), to provide the platform for InSite AdBuyer. FindWhat.com uses a proprietary technology where advertisements are purchased via an open bidding system. Advertisers are only charged for actual clicks, or traffic, to their sites.
With Lycos InSite AdBuyer, advertisers can create text-based ad panels for display on Lycos Search and HotBot. Customers only pay for the actual traffic their sites receive from the ad click-throughs. The auction- based service allows advertisers to set their own price and manage their campaigns to maximize their return on investment. InSite Adbuyer requires a minimum opening account balance starting at $50 and bidding starts at $.05 CPC/keyword.
According to Tom Wilde, general manager of search services for Terra Lycos, there are more than 350 million Web searches performed on the Internet every day and keyword targeting represents one of the most effective advertising approaches available.
And Danny Sullivan, editor of SearchEngineWatch.com, says, "If you are not considering search engine marketing in your marketing mix, it is as if you’re ignoring a major medium such as TV, radio or newspapers in the offline world."
He may just have a point.