Overture has just announced plans to acquire pioneering search company AltaVista. From Overture, “This acquisition reinforces our commitment to search and to providing you with new and powerful ways to connect with potential customers on the Internet. It also represents yet another step in our drive to accelerate and enhance our product development capabilities for both our advertisers and partners.”

AltaVista has been owned by CMGI, one of the great stories in the “dot com era” and suffered badly when the crash came in early 2000. We have been predicting CMGI’s demise for sometime and expected their pending bankruptcy to be announced within 6-12 months.

This is an exciting move as AltaVista has been one of Overture’s top affiliate partners. AltaVista has been making a nice comeback as of late, increasing their market share from just over 1% to the 3-4% range. Overture is looking to expand AltaVista’s paid inclusion service, and will continue to provide the featured listings in the search results.

It will take a few months for the acquisition to be finalized. I will continue to research this new development and advise you accordingly. In the meantime, Overture has prepared a Frequently Asked Questions section.

Overture has just announced plans to acquire pioneering search company AltaVista. From Overture, “This acquisition reinforces our commitment to search and to providing you with new and powerful ways to connect with potential customers on the Internet. It also represents yet another step in our drive to accelerate and enhance our product development capabilities for both our advertisers and partners.”

AltaVista has been owned by CMGI, one of the great stories in the “dot com era” and suffered badly when the crash came in early 2000. I have been predicting CMGI’s demise for sometime and expected their pending bankruptcy to be announced within 6-12 months.

This is an exciting move as AltaVista has been one of Overture’s top affiliate partners. AltaVista has been making a nice comeback as of late, increasing their market share from just over 1% to the 3-4% range. Overture is looking to expand AltaVista’s paid inclusion service, and will continue to provide the featured listings in the search results.

It will take a few months for the acquisition to be finalized. We will continue to research this new development and advise you accordingly.