Whatever happened to LookSmart?

This is the first of an occasional feature in which we look at some of the search tools that used to be major players in the market but have now largely disappeared from view. To begin with, we consider LookSmart this month, which used to be a significant directory and search site alongside Yahoo and the Open Directory.

First established in October 1996, LookSmart became a significant web directory where human editors would review and list sites. As the Internet boom arrived after 1998, the site became an important source of search traffic for sites that were listed – either through its own domain or through its listings partnerships with other search engines, including AltaVista and MSN, so that eventually free listings were charged for and the backlog of submissions grew.

There was a UK office and website established as the global coverage of this directory was expanded and additional revenue also began to be gained from the growth in pay-per-click advertising as Overture listings were included within the results. However, this all came to a sudden end at the end of 2003 when MSN, its main distribution partner, withdrew the arrangement and an estimated 70-80% of the company’s revenue was lost.

Since then LookSmart has faded into obscurity. The UK site no longer exists and the original US site has become a shadow of its former self with only a tiny percentage of the search market, which was not helped by a confusing series of changes to its pricing policies. It still earns some revenue from its own pay-per-click activity, although the company recently reported a large loss which included the costs of trying to combat click fraud on the site.

LookSmart still retains its directory listings and also displays search engine results from WiseNut, which it bought in 2002 when this new search engine index was being hailed as the new Google. This tool has now dropped behind in terms of current technology and the financial forecasts for the LookSmart business are poor.

If you’d like to know more about LookSmart, or if there is a search tool that you used to use in the past and wonder whatever happened to it, please let us know

Leave a Reply