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GoTo.com buys
Hawaii ’Net firm

The all-stock deal
for SearchUP's is
worth $3.2 million

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By Russ Lynch
Star-Bulletin

SearchUP Inc., a two-year-old Honolulu company that helps advertisers get their Web sites higher rankings on Internet search engines, has been sold to Pasadena, Calif.-based GoTo.com Inc., in a deal worth $3.2 million.

GoTo said it will transfer 261,255 of its shares to SearchUP in return for substantially all of its assets, including its Web site, database of registered members, registered URLs, trademarks and its patented URL Position Manager. (URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator, the Internet address by which Web sites are located.)

GoTo's stock, traded on the Nasdaq exchange, closed unchanged today at $12.37, putting the purchase's value at $3.2 million.

Founder Bryan J. Buck, who started SearchUP in June 1998 after working in Web-site marketing, said the company does for Internet advertisers what the Yellow Pages do for those who pay for listings. Those who pay more get more prominence, he said.

"We offer people the opportunity to pay for a higher ranking on search engines," so they get more hits, just as those who pay for bigger advertisements in the Yellow Pages generally get the most response.

What GoTo was mostly interested in, he said, was SearchUP's patented method of doing that, called the position manager.

Buck said that from his experience in marketing Web sites, he knew how frustrating it could be for advertisers whose Web links get lost among many others on the long lists that result from Internet searches.

The company says its URL position manager enables advertisers with both large and small Web sites to better position themselves so that their names will come up high on the list when a Web surfer uses an Internet search engine.

GoTo.com Inc. provides Internet customers with connections to advertisers, provides e-commerce services to businesses and has working partnerships with America Online, CompuServe, Earthlink, Microsoft and other service providers.

Advertisers pay GoTo for successful introductions to customers.

GoTo said SearchUP's technology and systems fit well with its business.

GoTo shares have fallen about 79 percent so far this year.