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Google finds AOL

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CIOL Bureau
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In a huge coup, Google, Silicon Valley's latest star start-up, announced

America Online has chosen Google as its primary Internet search engine. Google

is replacing Overture Services, formerly known as GoTo, for "paid

listings" services, a form of online advertising, in which companies pay to

be included in search results. AOL will also use Google for its general Internet

search service, replacing Inktomi.

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Google began as a research project at Stanford University before it raised

venture capital in 1999. Until recently, Google focused exclusively on building

an Internet search engine that crawled the entire Web, and has long been the

undisputed leader in Internet searches, relying mostly on word of mouth to build

its user base.

But its recent move into paid searches has also been successful. Earlier this

year, the Internet service provider EarthLink dropped Overture and signed up

with Google. Google likely won the AOL deal by packaging its Internet search

product with its "paid search" service. Google's popular Internet

search engine is a huge selling point for the company, giving it a lot of

negotiating power in selling secondary services. This could hurt Overture as it

continues to compete with Google.

Sergey Brin, Google's president of technology, said Google will continue to

pursue more partnerships in paid search, and would likely pursue more package

deals selling Internet search and paid search together. "We absolutely want

both our search services and our sponsored links to be on as many sites as

possible."

Last month, Overture sued Google alleging it infringed its patent for paid

search. Google maintains it designed its own technology in-house.

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