Search continues to make news as search provider Overture Services links up with Gator and Yahoo! revamps its search offerings.
According to published reports, Overture Services inked a three-year deal with adware company Gator to provide paid listings on its Search Scout service, which serves pop-under ads when users visit search engines like Google. Search Scout is downloaded to users' computers in return for free software, like Gator’s e-wallet application for filling out online forms.
Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
Overture began testing the service in September and has been quoted as saying that advertisers received a return on investment at or above the network's average.
Meanwhile, Yahoo Inc. earlier this week unveiled a revamped set of Internet search products, including putting maps, weather, news and other information directly in search results.
Its new search setup includes a number of features similar to those employed by Google, including a better search for images and small boxed text ads on the right side of the results page.
Also, registered Yahoo users will have access to a preferences page letting them set features on the main search page, including limiting results and filtering out mature content and foreign languages -- also Google-like features.
Jeff Weiner, Yahoo's senior vice president of search, says users can now pull up stories from Yahoo News by adding the word "news" to a search. Likewise, searching for a city name and adding the word "weather" would bring up current weather and forecasts for that city.
Yahoo will also roll out an expanded universal search bar at the top of its pages, much like the Netscape bar that tops pages in AOL Time Warner Inc.'s network.
