Google acquires ad company


25 Apr 2003

Market-leading search engine company Google yesterday announced that it had acquired Applied Semantics, California-based producer of software applications for the online advertising, domain name and enterprise information management markets.

The company stated that Applied Semantics’ products and engineering team will strengthen Google’s search and advertising programs, including its fast-growing content-targeted advertising offering. Additionally, the deal will enable Google to grow its engineering presence and recruiting efforts in the southern California region.

“Applied Semantics is a proven innovator in semantic text processing and online advertising,” said Sergey Brin, Google’s co-founder and president of technology. “This acquisition will enable Google to create new technologies that make online advertising more useful to users, publishers and advertisers alike.”

Applied Semantics’ products are based on its patented Circa technology, which understands, organises and extracts knowledge from websites and information repositories in a way that is claimed to mimic human thought and enable more effective information retrieval. A central application of the Circa technology is Applied Semantics’ AdSense product that enables web publishers to understand the key themes on web pages to deliver relevant and targeted advertisements.

Google is the latest big name technology company to locate in Ireland. Last month the company announced that it was to base its European operations in this country. It is expected that the move will create 200 jobs.

By Dick O’Brien