Pixsy Launches Ad-Supported Oscar Search Site

Today image and video search platform company Pixsy launched its Oscar-themed search site, AndTheOscarGoesTo.net. It’ll feature photos and videos of this year’s nominees for the coveted awards, along with past winners, red carpet shenanigans, that sort of thing.

Basically, Pixsy creates sites like this one to use as demos, displaying to distribution partners the types of themed vertical search sites they can build for them. They’ve also got a Mardi Gras one, a Super Bowl one, etc.

“All of this content is just sitting in our index,” Pixsy CEO Chase Norlin told me last week. “Success has to do with how you grab stuff that’s interesting and package it.”

While ad revenue is one reason distribution clients would want to offer such a search feature on their sites (the company offers targeted display ads served through various ad networks), Norlin affirmed my hunch that SEO for large search engines is another big one. The company updates its database every fifteen minutes, continually alerting search engines of its presence.

“We haven’t commented to the market the SEO benefits of that,” he said, adding, “We know people are using [Pixsy’s vertical search product] for SEO….They’re looking for new ways to increase traffic.”

Up next for Pixsy, said Norlin, is a March Madness portal and photo video search engine.