IAR: Overture Sews Up ESPN.com With Inktomi's Help

Paid search leader Overture Services (Quote, Company Info) announced a two-year deal to provide paid listings results on ESPN.com, while Inktomi will handle its Web and site search.

The exclusive deal calls for Overture to return up to seven paid search results on ESPN.com's search site that will appear in custom boxes. The paid listings will be part of an overhaul of ESPN.com's site-search function, which had featured a grown keyword capability. With the keyword search, a query for "Yao Ming" takes a user immediately to the basketball star's player profile page. Now, through a partnership Overture struck with Yahoo!'s Inktomi, the same query will return both site and Web search results, as well as Overture's paid listings.