Looksmart, one of the World's leading companies in search targeted marketing, have acquired WiseNut for around $9.5 Million (Around £6 Million). But what does this move mean for the average search engine user?

Well, WiseNut created a search engine system that allows users to search for a certain keyword, but also receive results on related keywords. For instance, typing "search engine optimisation" will also bring up results for "search engine submission", "search engine placement" and "search engine ranking".

Chief Technology Officer at LookSmart explains why WiseNut was targeted: "When we surveyed the landscape of new search technologies for the next generation 'better, faster, cheaper' architecture, WiseNut stood out". Acquiring WiseNut will help LookSmart strengthen their hold on the search engine market - their results are now available on many engines across the web, including MSN, AltaVista, Netscape, Ask Jeeves and many more engines across the USA.

Looksmart currently serve around 77% of all search engine users across their range of search engines - and with WiseNut, and the recent move to provide Sony sites with their results, LookSmart are certainly on track to stay as one of the top engines.

So what does this all mean for those of us concerned with search engine marketing? At present, LookSmart is a pay for listing service, while WiseNut allow users to add their site for free. Are we going to see WiseNut charging for placement? Initially, I believe we are likely to see Looksmart Directory listings cropping up in WiseNut search results in much the same way as they do in MSN Search now. In the long term Looksmart might look to increase profitability by introducing paid indexing, as seen in Inktomi, AltaVista and more recently Lycos. It is likely however that WiseNut's primary revenue source will be in licensing its search technology.

This is worth keeping an eye on over the next few months, however what is clear now is that Looksmart is strengthening its position in the search engine market, and that the acquisition of a technically advanced and popular crawler based engine sits well with their overall strategy.