LookSmart aims to outsmart Google with its new offering

Jason Kellerman begins his new job as CEO of a Web search company next week with one item on his to-do list: topple Google.

Mr. Kellerman moves up Oct. 1 to chief executive officer from his position as chief operating officer of LookSmart Ltd. The San Francisco-based company also sells marketing services to businesses that are featured high on the list of LookSmart's search results.

Google Inc., of Mountain View, is arguably the king of Internet search, as it is the top-ranked stand-alone Web search site (see chart), according to the Web traffic measurement firm Nielsen/Net Ratings, based in Milpitas. Google, like other search companies, also sells its search technology to other Web properties such as Web portals Yahoo Inc. and America Online, a division of AOL TimeWarner.

"We're offering the portals an alternative to Google," says Mr. Kellerman.

LookSmart made an acquisition in April that it says will make its technology competitive with Google's. The company also says it will offer a better deal to portals because it will not be competing with them for customers.

When Google provides the technology for portals like Yahoo or AOL, it gets its logo or name placed on the search results page, advertising itself to the portals' subscribers. LookSmart, on the other hand, is a man-behind-the-curtain information provider that the Web surfer never sees.

"Google is building its customer base at the expense of the portals. We are not a competitor of the portals," Mr. Kellerman says.

"Our services are complementary to our partners, not competitive," says company spokesman David Krane. "Google's partners experience large increases in traffic to their own sites after integrating Google's search technology."

An analyst familiar with both LookSmart and Google says the customer-poaching allegation is unwarranted.

"I don't think that's an effective charge," says Matthew Berk, senior analyst with Jupiter Research of New York City. "If you look at the terms of the deal … if Google is in fact doing it, my sense is that AOL [or Yahoo] is being very well-compensated for it. In other words, it's a win-win."