By making this choice, he said, EarthLink is shifting its Web site to become more like a portal for subscribers when they first log on to the Internet. Steen added that EarthLink plans to release new iterations of its search product in the coming year to improve the experience for consumers and bolster revenue. "Under the new environment, we get the brand name (of EarthLink) and Google, one of the most relevant search engines known for its pure results," Steen said. "We wanted to move away from being purely pay-for-performance." But EarthLink is not abandoning paid listings altogether. Steen said that because of Google's syndicated advertising "we get the best of both worlds. We're not going to walk away from a revenue stream." Neither is Google. The deal comes at a time when pay-for-play search services are taking heat for their practices. Last week, a diet pill maker filed suit against Overture and others, charging that the companies violated its trademark by regularly producing "misleading" search results when Web surfers performed a query on its name. Last year, a consumer action group also filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission that said paid-listing services were not always up front about clearly marking advertising. Google was not named in either of the complaints. Search experts say that these headaches may cause Overture and others to lose business at a time when Google may be poised to take it away. The lawsuits "could mean Overture has to re-engineer the way it does its search results," SearchDay's Sherman said. "If Google happens to step into the vacuum while Overture does it's re-engineering, that has big implications. There's a competitor there that might be there to take advantage of it." For its part, Google is focused on selling syndication to partners as a potential moneymaker. "This is our first publicly announced syndication relationship," Google spokesman David Krane said. "The benefit to this program is that our partners gain access to Google's high-quality, relevant results and also have an opportunity to generate more revenue on these pages."
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