January 19, 2004

Although the LookSmart database does include listings from the volunteer based Zeal directory, most of the results are now pay-per-click text ads.

Microsoft's MSN.com portal has for a long time added LookSmart's directory listings to its search engine results.

Obviously someone at MSN realized that the LookSmart results reduced the quality of the overall search results. Moreover, it became hard to distinguish between paid entries and regular search result.

Pandia has previously reported on MSN's decision to abandon LookSmart. Last week LookSmart results started disappearing from MSN-sites all over the world, and will probably be gone in most countries shortly. (In Norway we continue to see LookSmart "Web Directory" results, though).

In the future MSN.com will deliver search results from the Inktomi search engine, and add text ads (predominantly from Overture) marked as "sponsored" and "featured" sites.

Later this year, or -- more likely -- next year, MSN will replace Inktomi with its own search engine.

Source: Pandia

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