Emitch Adds The Sinewave `search Optimiser'

Sydney Morning Herald

Thursday August 31, 2000

Kirsty Needham

Internet advertising broker eMitch has added online artifice to its services, aligning with Sinewave Interactive to offer ``search optimisation" to clients.

A euphemism for a bunch of blokes trying to capture major search engines like Alta Vista and Google, Sinewave has been offering ``search optimisation" since 1998.

``We have a team of people that look at how the search engines rate sites and then build Web pages for the client based on keywords for each search engine so that they come up at the top of the rankings," says Sinewave chief executive Mr Andrew Walsh.

``We don't guarantee anything but our results have been good."

Web sites that have used the service include online casino Lasseters buying words like ``betting" Wishlist and Dstore.

But Mr Walsh admits the tactic is ``a moving feast". The search engines also sell key words and prominent positions within their sites, so are constantly changing their search algorithms to foil the interlopers.

Ninemsn is among those that attempt to weed out the practice.

``Search optimisation is a real issue and the point for us is that it's not great for consumer satisfaction," said Ninemsn director of marketing Ms Kim Anderson.

While Ninemsn sells the top three search positions in major categories, such as ``flowers", to what it says are relevant sites, search optimisers can include porn sites attaching themselves to unrelated terms, she says.

``Our directories give a list of the top 10 sites. Search optimisers could effect our algorithms but because we have human intervention, we push porn and people trying to optimise down to the bottom of the list."

Founded by two twenty-somethings, Sinewave attracted $6 million in venture capital funding in May, prompting it to shift its popular free Internet ranking Web site, top100.com.au, to a subscription based service, Hitwise.

The rankings in 120 different categories are generated from data provided by major Internet service providers. Sinewave gives a percentage of the revenue generated by Hitwise back to the ISPs. It has plans to move the model into Asia.

Mr Walsh recently joined the company from a background as chief operating officer with Sausage Software.