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THE SERIOUS BUSINESS OF INTERNET SEARCH ENGINES

As reported by Elizabeth Millard; to survive in the long run, search engine companies will have to focus on more than the number and breadth of Web pages scanned.

In fact, outstripping competitors in the future may involve signing up a bevy of corporate clients and tailoring technology to suit their needs, rather than simply crafting the coolest Web tool.

Shake, Rattle and Roll

"There is money being made, although it doesn't seem like it," Sue Feldman, research vice president at IDC, said. "And there is definitely money to be made in the future. The shakeout is happening now."

Market leader Google is being challenged by upstarts in an increasingly crowded field. AlltheWeb.com recently declared that it indexes more information than Google, and other players that have come lately to the party, like InQuira and Teoma, could gain ground as well.

Challenges to the leading engine are nothing new. Once-fledgling Google managed to supplant top-ranked engines on its own climb to the top, gaining popularity over Excite, Yahoo, AltaVista and Ask Jeeves.

"The software search engine business is growing despite the economic slowdown," Feldman said. "It's a hot spot."

Where's the Money?

Staying afloat has been a challenge for search engines -- even heavy hitters like Google -- especially since engine builders traditionally have focused more on product than on profit.

They also have been passionate about beating the geek next door.

Gartner research director Whit Andrews said: "In a lot of ways, building the best engine could be compared to souping up the fastest car in the neighborhood. Inevitably, you want to race it against the best guy."

Devising a way to deliver vast stores of knowledge to the people who want that information is a compelling problem, Andrews said. It leads to extraordinarily complex mathematical and linguistic challenges that are nearly impossible for savvy engineers to pass up.

Place To Be

Although search engine builders may enter the fray for the technological challenge, they tend to remain when they find out how heated the field can get.

"They stay in the business because it's one of the most closely watched industries," Andrews said. "Think about it. Almost everybody in the educated world has used a search engine, and for many people it's a part of their daily routine. In seven years, the industry has gone from being relatively obscure to being an everyday thing. Now, if only you could figure out a way to get rich from it."

Several companies are trying to solve the search engine profitability conundrum: The supply is there, the demand is overwhelming, so where can the money be made?

Some firms believe the answer lies not in advertising but in selling services to corporations.

Searching for Tactics

According to Feldman, "Giving out information free gets in the way of making money, but there are ways to get revenue. Beyond advertising, engines can provide additional services like putting their technology on large company Web sites that require the kind of robust search Internet engines provide."

The strategies employed by sites looking for revenue are mixed.

Companies like Teoma, which was bought by Ask Jeeves, are exploring licensing and higher-tier services. Teoma touts itself as an engine that can perform deep, specialized searches, and that can fit nicely inside a company firewall.

Meanwhile, natural language-driven newcomer InQuira is trying to secure company contracts by demonstrating its claimed superiority, while AltaVista is working on pay-for-performance partnerships.

Even with the heavy competition in the field, analysts expect more players to emerge. Who will be the leader in the future, and who will make money doing it, remains to be seen.

At the moment, however, it looks as though Google has the lead -- and means to keep it.