Overture, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Yahoo!, has launched a new paid inclusion program, called Site Match, as the commercial component of CAP. Site Match allows commercial content providers to effectively submit Web content, update it frequently, obtain additional targeted leads, and track and optimize their performance.
"Our primary goal is to discover all the content on the Web for free. In addition, the Content Acquisition Program serves to make a richer set of content accessible to users in a way that most search engines today are unable to achieve," said Tim Cadogan, vice president of Search at Yahoo! Inc. "This program enables us to develop direct, structured relationships with content providers to increase comprehensiveness, maintain the most up-to-date data, improve relevance and thereby deliver a higher quality search experience for users."
As part of the non-commercial channel of CAP, called Public Site Match, Yahoo! Search is working with several content providers from government, academia and other non-profit sectors to help improve search quality and expand the breadth and depth of content users can access through search, including:
- NPR (National Public Radio), an internationally acclaimed producer and distributor of non-commercial news, talk and entertainment programming, will provide access to the audio from its flagship news and information programs.
- Northwestern University's online OYEZ project contains more than 2,000 hours of Supreme Court audio, including all audio recorded since 1995.
- Library of Congress, the research arm of Congress, is the largest library in the world with more than 128 million items, including 29 million books and other print materials, 12 million photographs and 57 million manuscripts.
Additional CAP partners include The New York Public Library, one of the most renowned libraries in the country; Project Gutenberg, the Web's oldest producer of free electronic books; University of Michigan's OAIster project, which provides hard to find academic collections; UCLA's Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI) with content documenting Babylonian history back to 3500 B.C.; Wikipedia, a free, multilingual online encyclopedia with articles in more than 50 languages; and the National Science Digital Library (NSDL), the National Science Foundation's online library, with more than 250 collections that improve the way Americans learn about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The OYEZ, CDLI and NSDL projects are all federally funded in part or in whole by the National Science Foundation.
"Yahoo! is thinking innovatively about how to bring content to the broader Web search audience while changing and improving the way search engines interact with content providers," said Maria Thomas, vice president and general manager for NPR Online. "Through Yahoo!'s CAP program, NPR's daily news, information and entertainment content will be searchable by and accessible to audiences we might not otherwise reach."
The Overture Site Match program enables structured interaction between commercial content providers and Yahoo!'s search index. By creating a straightforward process for submitting deep and dynamic content, Site Match allows content providers to provide and frequently update Web pages and additional relevant content. With one program, content providers will be able to reach more than 75% of Web users through distribution on Yahoo! and a network of partners.
"We are pleased to join the new Site Match Xchange program, which will provide greater access to Yahoo!'s large user base and generate additional leads," said Curt Cozadd, director of marketing for CarsDirect. "The expanded reach and direct interaction with Yahoo! were huge selling points in joining this program."
Site Match is available in the U.S. as a self-service subscription program for smaller commercial content providers and Site Match Xchange is a full-service program for larger commercial content providers. Site Match will be available directly from Overture and through resellers including Position Technologies, Marketleap, ineedhits, Trellian, Network Solutions and infoSpider. Site Match Xchange will also be available directly and through resellers including TrafficLeader, Performics and GO TOAST. Customers participating in current Inktomi, AltaVista and FAST paid inclusion programs should contact their resellers or Overture for information regarding migration to the new Site Match program.