SEO Blog

A new comparison shopping engine, owed by InterActive Corp, is now live. Pronto is a free search engine that lets users find and compare products / merchants online. It also allows users to set up price alerts when products meet a specified price range.

When a user enters a query for a product, Pronto analyzes its index for merchants that carry that product. When Pronto finds relevant results, a small window appears called a “Message Toast.” Users can click the Message Toast to view expanded info about the product, merchants and prices.

Results are gathered by Pronto’s own propriety bot that crawls the web. Pronto also displays sponsored results.

Some of the categories to search under include:

• Apparel
• Electronics
• Home and Garden
• Books, Music & Video
• Sporting Goods
• Baby
• Tools

More in-depth information about Pronto will be posted to our sitemap in the future.

A number of deals went down last week between some major companies regarding online video search. Today, AOL has upped the ante by announcing the purchase of Burlingame California based video search engine Truveo, in what is rumored to be a deal worth an astounding amount of cash.

AOL has not commented on the exact amount it paid for Truveo, however it was apparently one of the largest cash transactions AOL has made in recent times. The deal was finalized December 21, 2005.

Truveo was founded in 2004, and launched in September 2005. Although the engine is fairly new, it has amassed an impressive index of video material, claiming to be one of the largest video based indexes in the world. Truveo uses its propriety “Visual Crawling” technology to constantly crawl the web in search of video content.

Jonathan F. Miller, Chairman & CEO of AOL, said, “Consumers across the web have eagerly anticipated a video search engine that offers relevant, up-to-the-minute, premium video results. The addition of Truveo’s video search technology, video assets, and experienced talent complements the overall video experience on AOL and takes it to new heights.”

Some of AOL’s Recent moves:

Japan may soon launch its own search engine, according to reports. Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry recently announced the country will begin a search engine study with some major electronics companies and universities to discuss the issue. Japan is thinking about getting into the market currently dominated by American companies, such as Google.

According to Information Week: “The Nihon Keizai Shimbun newspaper reported Monday that the government plans to spend several billions of yen (tens of millions of dollars and euros) for a three-to-five year project to develop a search engine beginning in fiscal 2007. Japan’s fiscal year starts in April.

The report said that Japan wants to come up with its own version of search engine to catch up with the American companies that receive high profits from online ad revenues.”

Information is vague, but picture search may be one of the features. Some of the companies on board include Fujitsu, Hitachi and NEC.