Searching For Revenue On The Internet: Yahoo! Acquires Overture

This case examines Overture Services, Inc., the Internet search engine and online advertising company that was acquired by Yahoo!. Overture was a leader in the market for sponsored search, in which a search engine sells to advertisers keywords that users seek when they perform Internet searches. Advertisers pay sponsored search companies anything from a few cents to ten or twenty dollars when users click on so-called “sponsored links” that appear alongside the search results generated by a sponsored keyword. Sponsored searches were an important source of revenue for companies such as Yahoo! and Google. However, as search engines became more sophisticated and consumers relied upon them for more activities, the scope for new revenue opportunities increased.