Excite loses out as Virgin Net and Lycos team up

NEWS Virgin Net and Lycos UK & Ireland have teamed up to offer online advertisers and retailers a search engine on the Virgin Net site. The move replaces a facility previously provided by Excite. Lycos' software will allow Virgin Net to offer keyword searching to its 120,000 subscribers. It is expected to boost page impressions by up to 1.8 million per month. The function will allow advertisers to target their products directly to Virgin's subscribers, via their own catalogues. For example, a publisher or retailer could reserve the word 'book' which would automatically put their product or company at the top of the search list to Virgin's subscribers. Current advertisers on Virgin Net include the BBC, Citibank and TBS. The joint deal will go live later this week.