AskJeeves Completes Interactive Acquisition

By WebProNews - Fri, 05/07/2004 - 16:10

In a move that is expected to double their search engine market traffic, AskJeeves announced the finalization of their purchase of Interactive Search Holdings. Terms of the agreement calls for Jeeves to pay $144 million in cash and to issue 9.3 million shares of common stock to Interactive.

Reuters reports that the purchase of Interactive Search Holdings also includes rights to Excite, iWon, My Way, My Search, My WebSearch, and the MaxOnline ad network.

"This acquisition doubles our market share and enhances our ability to compete in the fast-growing search market," said Steve Berkowitz, CEO of Ask Jeeves.

"We now have substantially more traffic and advertising inventory, which we believe will increase our value to advertisers and partners. Additionally, consumers like to access information in different ways and we believe through our expanded portfolio of brands we will be in an even better position to meet those needs."

According to Nielsen NetRatings (March 2004), with the acquisition of Interactive Search Holdings, Ask Jeeves:

Becomes the 7th largest domestic Web property in terms of unique users;

Extends its reach to 27% of the domestic Internet, representing approximately 39 million unique users; and

Increases its reach of domestic searchers to 25%, or approximately 29 million unique searchers

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