Slight change of nationality

Parisian firm Publicis Groupe has purchased Performics Search Marketing, a division of DoubleClick that Google has been planning to sell.

Performics Search Marketing will be incorporated into Publicis' VivaKi Nerve Center, headed by Curt Hecht, reports MediaPost.

Performics launched in 1998 and is based in Chicago. When its merger with DoubleClick was formalized in March, it promptly announced plans to sell Performics Search Marketing, which specializes in search engine optimization (helping companies improve their organic rankings on search engines, particularly Google's) — a clear conflict of interest for the search giant, which keeps its search algorithm close to the vest.

Google opted to maintain ownership of the Performics Affiliate Network, which was quietly rebranded as the Google Affiliate Network in July.

The sale is expected to finalize in Q3. Financial terms were not disclosed.