Overture Renews, Expands Lycos Europe Deal

Under the exclusive, multi-year relationship, Overture will continue to provide sponsored search results on Lycos Europe properties in UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Austria and Switzerland. A new component of the deal will make Overture the exclusive provider of contextual listings to Lycos Europe properties in Germany, UK, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands.

Overture has provided Lycos Europe with paid search results since June 2002. Previously, Google had provided contextual ads on Lycos Europe’s Tripod community pages. Google recently deposed Overture on AOL Europe, but Overture still has relationships with Yahoo, MSN, and Wanadoo.

“We have made excellent experiences with the previous team play with Overture regarding exclusive sponsored search distribution. Thus, we are encouraged to extend the co-operation to a broader field,” said Michael Rohowski, chief sales officer for Lycos Europe.

The contextual listings will appear on the chat and email, directory, and channel pages in all the countries involved, and on Lycos Shopping pages in UK, France, Germany and Italy.

“By deepening our relationships with Lycos Europe around Europe, Overture will provide advertisers with many new opportunities to connect with their customers,” said Stephen Taylor, managing director of Overture Europe. “Lycos Europe is an important pan-European Internet player and we are pleased to enhance our collaboration with them.”

Lycos Europe, a separate entity from its U.S. namesake that was acquired by Daum last year, operates a network of destination sites in 10 countries and eight languages, serving more than 20 million users a month. Properties include search, communication services, content channels, Internet access, homepage building and online communities.