Hmmm - I don't know how I feel about this.....
NEW YORK (AP) -- In a first among the major Internet search engines, AltaVista.com will
begin offering advertisers the opportunity to have their Web sites listed at the top of search
results, causing concern that a valuable tool to sift through the Web could be compromised
by commercial pressures.
The paid links will appear when an AltaVista user searches for information using any of
about 500 initial keywords -- including ''computer.'' The bracketed notices will be marked as
paid for by advertisers, although it's unclear how prominent the disclosure will be. The
program is expected to begin Monday.
''The onus is on us to ensure the paid placements are relevant,'' said Rod Schrock, president
and CEO of AltaVista.com. ''But I believe we're making our search results page more
relevant.''
Search engines are some of the most popular sites on the Web, and they are often the
starting point for researching purchases such as a house, a car or a computer.
Still, profit margins online are slim to nonexistent, and companies looking to justify soaring
stock prices are inventing new revenue streams that some might say compromises objective
information.
Rivals such as Excite or Lycos use software to prowl the Web and gather keywords based
on what appears in the Web pages. When a user searches for ''Maria Callas'' the opera
singer, for example, the software returns the Web pages that it computes to most closely
match a user's request, in the order of most closely matched.
AltaVista, by contrast, now might display merchants selling compact discs of Callas at the
top of the list -- useful if a user wants to buy a CD, but not so useful for student writing a
report.
Payment for search placement is not unheard of. Lesser-known GoTo.com, based in
Pasadena, Calif., also offers a similar option, though AltaVista is the first major service to do
so.
''The idea of a search engine is to find information on a chaotic web,'' said Gary Ruskin,
director of Commercial Alert, a consumer advocacy group in Washington, D.C. ''If the top
slots are for sale as opposed to what the information really is, people will go elsewhere.''
Amazon.com felt that sting in February, when it admitted it had sold positive book
recommendations with prominent placement to publishers. The company offered refunds and
began marking paid recommendations as such when customers complained.
AltaVista is no doubt feeling similar pressure to deliver, as parent company Compaq
Computer Corp. moves forward with plans to spin off the search engine in an initial public
offering sometime this year.
The new revenue ''will be not insignificant,'' said Schrock. ''If executed well, it could be a
good contributor of revenue.''
DoubleClick Inc., which sells advertising for AltaVista, promoted the program in a recent
e-mail message to potential customers.
''When users perform keyword searches on AltaVista, what is the first listing they see?'' the
message said. ''Now it can be your company's listing.''
For this to work, the search engine must ensure it matches paid keywords and links with
relevant merchants, said Marissa Gluck, an analyst at Jupiter Communications, a research
firm in New York.
''They shouldn't be selling the word 'football' to Ford just because Ford is trying to target a
certain demographic,'' she said.
And consumers should be clearly informed that the listing is paid for.
''If it is done wisely, it could benefit the consumer,'' she said. ''But you have to let the
consumer know that that is real estate that has been sold.''
But even that won't be enough for some.
''It's part of a greater theme of how commercialism destroys the integrity of everything it
touches,'' said Ruskin. ''That's today's example. There will be another one tomorrow.''
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