AUSTIN, Texas – Click Forensics™, Inc., the industry leader in scoring, auditing, and improving traffic quality for the online advertising community, today announced that it was named a winner of the Austin Business Journal Tech Innovation Awards. This year’s Awards recognize the most promising technologies developed in the central Texas region in 2008. Click Forensics was recognized in the Internet Award category for its market leadership in helping to quantify the size of the industry click fraud problem and for developing breakthrough technologies that help to mitigate the impact click fraud and low traffic quality have on search advertisers and publishers.

“Austin’s rich technology community is known for developing solutions that impact technology on a global scale,” said Colin Pope, editor of the Austin Business Journal. “The competition for the 2008 Tech Innovation Awards has been strong and we are honored to recognize Click Forensics as a winner.”

Click Forensics offers traffic quality management solutions designed for online advertisers, ad networks and publishers. The Click Forensics solutions use patent-pending heuristics to measure and score traffic quality. The solutions provide continuous updates on sites that are sources of poor quality traffic and click fraud so that advertisers and ad networks can protect their campaigns and those of their clients, while improving overall campaign performance.

“We’re honored to be chosen as a Tech Innovation Awards winner,” said Paul Pellman, CEO of Click Forensics. “Austin has incubated some of the best and brightest young companies in the country and we’re pleased to be among this year’s recipients for this prestigious award.”

For more information on Click Forensics, visit www.clickforensics.com.

About Click Forensics, Inc.

Click Forensics is the industry leader in scoring, auditing and improving traffic quality for the online advertising community. Click Forensics provides traffic quality management solutions for online advertisers, publishers, and ad networks. The company also publishes the Click Fraud Index®, the top independent source of industry click fraud data. Click Forensics is headquartered in Austin, Texas, and is privately held with funding from Sierra Ventures, Austin Ventures and Shasta Ventures. More information on Click Forensics and its offerings is available at www.ClickForensics.com.

Click Fraud Index is a registered trademark of Click Forensics, Inc. Click Forensics and Click Fraud Network are trademarks of Click Forensics, Inc. All other company and product names mentioned are used only for identification and may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

SAN FRANCISCO – LookSmart, Ltd. (NASDAQ:LOOK), the search advertising network and management company, highlighted metrics that demonstrated the company’s delivery of superior value for search advertisers who seek broad and cost-effective reach for their keyword text advertising campaigns.

During this year’s second fiscal quarter, LookSmart’s network averaged nearly 500 million queries per day, providing search advertisers with a quality complement to their campaigns on the major search engines. According to a research paper from search engine marketing solutions provider Efficient Frontier, “Search Engine Performance Report Q2 2008,” Google, Microsoft Live and Yahoo delivered CPCs of approximately 71 cents, 59 cents and 51 cents, respectively. LookSmart’s average cost-per-click during the same period was 8 cents.

“In these tough economic times, search advertisers seek quality and value for their campaigns. As prices on proprietary search engines continue to rise without proportionate added value to search advertisers, search advertising networks such as LookSmart offer an attractive value proposition by presenting a large volume of quality clicks at a very reasonable cost,” said Ted West, chief executive officer and president of LookSmart. “The quality of our network is monitored to ensure value to our customers, and we work closely with our advertisers to manage their campaigns for strong return on investment. Our award-winning, proven platform scales to meet advertiser needs and efficiently targets search audiences on our growing network of non-proprietary search queries. LookSmart’s advertisers benefit from the quality and service offered.”

Kyle Koch, SEM Manager at RealtyTrac, the leading online provider of resources for home seekers, investors and real estate agents, said, “Working with LookSmart provides RealtyTrac with incremental business that we would not have realized otherwise. The LookSmart staff is very knowledgeable and helps to ease our workload with keyword expansion, bid management, and custom distribution for our campaigns. They provide clever insights and show us ways to better optimize our account for the best possible ROI.”

About LookSmart

LookSmart (NASDAQ:LOOK) is a premier search advertising network and management company. A trusted provider of quality search advertising products and services to text advertisers, LookSmart offers targeted pay-per-click search and contextual advertising via its proven Search Advertising Network. For publishers seeking to create their own vertical advertising networks, LookSmart also licenses and manages its award-winning AdCenter platform. Dedicated to the quality of text advertising, LookSmart is one of the five founding members of the IAB Click Measurement Panel. For more information, visit www.LookSmart.com or call 415-348-7500.

SUNNYVALE, Calif. – Efficient Frontier, the worldwide leader in providing Search Engine Marketing technology and services to leading advertisers and agencies, today released the U.S. Search Engine Performance Report: Q3 2008. The report, the largest independent research in the search marketing industry, was based on an analysis of 60 billion impressions and 428 million clicks across an index of Efficient Frontier advertisers. The results of the research indicate that while overall growth has been slowing throughout 2008, return on investment remains strong in this highly productive direct marketing channel.

The report showed that Google continues to gain ground. For every new dollar spent on search advertising in Q3 2008 versus Q3 2007, Google received $1.14, while Yahoo and Microsoft each lost $0.07. Google continues to dominate the overall share of spending at 76%, although the company’s search advertising growth decreased by 1.9 percentage points from Q2 to Q3 2008. Yahoo search gained 1.8 points in the same quarter to bring it to 19.2% of total spent while Microsoft Live Search held relatively steady at 4.8% share.

Of Google’s 76% share, 4.6% was from Google content, an increase of 82.8% for non-financial services advertisers. Google content was the only search engine channel for which all advertisers increased spending in Q3 2008.

“Our data shows that search engine marketing continues to be a highly productive direct marketing channel for advertisers, even in challenging markets,” said James Beriker, President and CEO of Efficient Frontier. “With increased competition and a decrease in the total number of conversions, advertisers will either slash budgets or use advanced technologies to maximize volume and ROI. We’re proud to partner with the most sophisticated search advertisers in the world to continue to drive their ongoing success in these tough markets.”

Other Key Findings

* ROI improved YOY on all three engines for advertisers outside of financial services in the face of increasingly dynamic economic conditions.
* Spending on Google by non-financial services advertisers grew by 3.6% on YOY basis, faster than the overall growth rate of 2.5%. Thus Google gained $1.14 of every new search dollar in Q3 2008 versus Q3 2007, while Yahoo and Microsoft each lost $0.07 for every new dollar spent on search in that period.
* Yahoo accounted for 19.2% of U.S. search engine spending in Q3 2008, losing 1.3 percentage points in share from Q3 2007 but gaining 1.8 percentage points from Q2 2008. Total spending on Yahoo increased by 7.2% from Q2 to Q3 2008 for advertisers outside of the financial services sector, and by 2.5% for those in financial services.
* Microsoft Live Search accounted for 4.8% of U.S. search spending in Q3 2008, down 0.8 percentage points from the previous year. Overall spending on Microsoft Live Search declined for all advertisers on both a YOY and Q/Q basis.
* On a global basis, Google dominated the search marketplace in Q3 2008, capturing more than 85% of search spending share in the UK, Europe, and Australia. In Japan, Google accounted for 55% of search spending.

The complete U.S. Search Engine Performance Report: Q3, 2008 is available for download from the Efficient Frontier website at: http://www.efrontier.com/efficient-frontier/resources/research/getRese archQ308.html (Due to its length, this URL may need to be copied/pasted into your Internet browser’s address field. Remove the extra space if one exists.)

Research Methodology

Analysis for the Efficient Frontier report was based on data from a fixed sample of Efficient Frontier U.S. clients from Q3 2007 through Q3 2008, and covers nearly 60 billion impressions and more than 428 million clicks on search and content ads on Google, Yahoo and Microsoft Live Search. The report includes data from advertisers in the financial services, travel, retail, automotive and business-to-business verticals.

About Efficient Frontier

Efficient Frontier is the market and technology leader in providing Search Engine Marketing (SEM) solutions for leading global advertisers and agencies. Founded in 2002, Efficient Frontier pioneered the application of modern portfolio theory to SEM and today combines its core predictive modeling algorithms and bidding technology with comprehensive strategic and tactical value added services to manage more than $750MM in annual search spend for over 200 leading advertisers in 20 countries. The company has over 200 employees and is headquartered in Sunnyvale, CA with offices in New York, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Hong Kong, and India, and technology licensing partnerships in Japan and Australia. Efficient Frontier is a privately held company with funding from Redpoint Ventures and Cambrian Ventures. For more information, please visit www.efrontier.com and subscribe to the Efficient Frontier blog at http://blog.efrontier.com/.

SAN FRANCISCO – LookSmart, Ltd. (NASDAQ:LOOK), a pay-per-click (PPC) search advertising network and technology solutions provider, announced it is partnering with Click Forensics, the industry leader in scoring, auditing and improving traffic quality for the online advertising community, to receive third party PPC quality reports. LookSmart is leveraging Click Forensics’ FACTr reports to improve the speed and flow of feedback from advertisers on the value delivered through the LookSmart network.

“LookSmart is focused on maintaining and enhancing our network quality assurance processes, which are key to delivering the highest return on investment to our search advertisers,” said Ted West, chief executive officer and president of LookSmart. “The FACTr reports represent one more way we are delivering on our promise to advertisers to help them make smart, dependable choices that will make a real difference for their business.”

LookSmart is dedicated to continuous improvement and was a founding member of the IAB Click Measurement Panel. FACTr, or Fully Automated Click Tracking Reconciliation, is an important ingredient in continuing that improvement because it provides search advertisers an easy, automated method for electronically reporting unwanted traffic to search providers such as LookSmart. LookSmart will use these reports to strengthen the integrity of its targeted PPC advertising services.

“By using live campaign data and patent-pending analytics, FACTr makes it easier for targeted search providers such as LookSmart to ensure their clients are receiving quality clicks and the best value for their ad spend,” said Tom Cuthbert, president of Click Forensics. “FACTr is an easy way for search advertising networks to increase loyalty and trust with their clients.”

About LookSmart

LookSmart (NASDAQ:LOOK) is a premier search advertising network and management company. A trusted provider of quality search advertising products and services to text advertisers, LookSmart offers targeted pay-per-click search and contextual advertising via its proven Search Advertising Network. For publishers seeking to create their own vertical advertising networks, LookSmart also licenses and manages its award-winning AdCenter platform. Dedicated to the quality of text advertising, LookSmart is one of the five founding members of the IAB Click Measurement Panel. For more information, visit www.LookSmart.com or call 415-348-7500

SAN FRANCISCO – LookSmart, Ltd. (NASDAQ:LOOK), a pay-per-click (PPC) search advertising network and technology solutions provider, today announced the release of valuable enhancements to its award-winning text advertising platform that make it even easier for advertisers to target niche audiences, manage bid prices, and control traffic quality.

Enhancements to the LookSmart AdCenter platform include:

- Day Parting – advertisers can target the right message at the right time by scheduling campaigns to run at specific times of day and days of the week
- Easy Price Adjustments – advertisers can save time and effort by adjusting bid prices and reserve amounts on millions of keywords and thousands of campaigns at once
- Negative Keyword Management – advertisers can decrease campaign administration time by applying keywords at the campaign level

“We work hard to provide the very best search advertising platform and tools so advertisers can make smart choices and maximize ROI,” said Ted West, chief executive officer and president of LookSmart. “Our proven platform makes it easy for search advertisers to properly scale and manage campaigns to reach highly qualified audiences with the right message at the right time.”

LookSmart’s talented account managers also can tailor “custom distribution channels” on the LookSmart advertising network that provide finer control over where advertisements appear. Selecting from among LookSmart’s base of 500 million queries per day, account managers work closely with advertisers to create white-lists that specify the types of traffic they want, create black-lists to block unwanted traffic, and decide how much budget to spend on specific categories and feeds. These proven tools and techniques provide advertisers with traffic quality control on individual campaigns or hundreds of campaigns at once, using thousands or even millions of keywords. Search advertisers can further target their audience in the U.S., Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand using the geo-targeting capability of the AdCenter, which enables them to more effectively connect with the targeted customers they seek.

About LookSmart

LookSmart (NASDAQ:LOOK) is a premier search advertising network and management company. A trusted provider of quality search advertising products and services to text advertisers, LookSmart offers targeted pay-per-click search and contextual advertising via its proven Search Advertising Network. For publishers seeking to create their own vertical advertising networks, LookSmart also licenses and manages its award-winning AdCenter platform. Dedicated to the quality of text advertising, LookSmart is committed to safeguarding against invalid clicks and is one of the five founding members of the IAB click measurement panel. For more information, visit www.LookSmart.com or call 415-348-7500

SAN FRANCISCO – LookSmart, Ltd. (NASDAQ:LOOK), a pay-per-click (PPC) search advertising network and technology solutions provider, announced its ad network has been bolstered by the addition of 30 high-quality distribution partners, some of which resulted from expanding internationally into the UK and Australia. High-quality traffic, which offers search advertisers improved click-through and conversion rates in categories such as travel, technology and retail, has doubled while low-quality traffic has been cut in half.

“As we add top-quality traffic, we work vigilantly to maintain unsurpassed excellence throughout the network – our goal is to deliver superior ROI and conversion rates for all our search advertisers,” said Ted West, chief executive officer and president of LookSmart. “Our LookSmart Network Management team weighs user conversion data and employs statistical models to gauge network quality and reporting in real time – ultimately delivering better value to our customers.”

LookSmart makes it easy to run successful ad campaigns. Search advertisers work directly with dedicated account managers, who are skilled at creating customized distribution channels across LookSmart’s optimized network. This service advantage allows search advertisers to attract highly targeted leads and maximize ROI, whether the campaign is global or targets a specific country or local market. Search advertisers also have the option to manage their campaigns easily through LookSmart’s self-service ad-serving interface.

About LookSmart

LookSmart (NASDAQ: LOOK) is a provider of trusted products and service solutions for pay-per-click (PPC) text advertising. The company offers search advertisers targeted PPC search and contextual advertising via its proven Search Advertising Network and award-winning AdCenter platform technology. It also licenses its Ad Center technology to top publishers and networks. Dedicated to the quality of its network, LookSmart is committed to safeguarding against advertiser fraud and is one of the five founding members of the IAB click measurement panel. For more information, visit www.LookSmart.com or call 415-348-7500.

SAN JOSE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Richard Stokes, AdGooroo founder and chief gooroo, reveals successful search marketing tactics known only by a small amount of search advertising’s elite in his new book, Mastering Search Advertising – How the Top 3% of Search Advertisers Dominate Google AdWords.

“Mastering Search Advertising conveys a ton of insights that go well beyond well-trodden AdWords knowledge. It puts hard numbers on a lot of things that I’ve believed but been unable to prove, about what makes the top 3 percent dominate the search engines,” says Perry Marshall, author of Ultimate Guide to Google AdWords. “…Those who want to prevail in hyper-competitive markets need this book.”

In the book, Stokes not only describes the basics of launching a pay-per-click campaign but also dissects the complex practice into a step-by-step process focused on achieving outstanding marketing strategy for any business. With more than 15 years experience in the industry, Stokes offers readers graphic representations and case studies, as well as his own real-life examples, based on years of competitive intelligence data from AdGooroo, the same data utilized by top search agencies and brand marketers.

“Readily available marketing tips and tutorials, accessible on the Internet and other public forums, tend to be outdated or incorrect, while the techniques that really deliver results are kept close to the chest of those in the dominating minority,” explains Stokes. “This doesn’t have to be the case, and the book provides the majority of search marketers with the tools and insights they need to improve their performance and level the playing field.”

Mastering Search Advertising – How the Top 3% of Search Advertisers Dominate Google AdWords is available through Amazon.com and all major book stores. More information and complimentary sample chapters are available on AdGooroo’s Web site at http://www.adgooroo.com/mastering_search_advertising.php.

About Richard Stokes

Richard Stokes, AdGooroo’s founder and chief gooroo, is a successful entrepreneur, general manager and Internet marketer, with 15 years experience in high-profile technology and marketing roles. Stokes graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering. He received his MBA in marketing, entrepreneurship & technology management from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.

About AdGooroo

AdGooroo provides online marketers and agencies actionable, on demand competitive intelligence tools that proactively monitor an industry’s advertising landscape to help them build a long-term competitive advantage. Based in Chicago, AdGooroo provides competitive intelligence to search engine marketers through its tool suite, including AdGooroo Express, SEM Insight and Trademark Insight. AdGooroo tools leverage access and automation to provide advertisers with lists of competitors’ top keywords, ad copy, campaign statistics and more. Top agencies and brand advertisers leverage AdGooroo competitive intelligence tools. For more information, visit AdGooroo.com.

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 18, 2008 – LookSmart, Ltd. (NASDAQ:LOOK), a pay-per-click (PPC) Search Advertising Network and technology solutions provider, today unveiled its new corporate identity and redesigned Web site, LookSmart.com, at the 2008 Search Engine Strategies Conference in San Jose. The company is an exhibitor, as well as a sponsor and participant in a panel discussion entitled “Everything but Google: Alternative Search Advertising Options.” LookSmart worked with Boston-based, social media marketing agency Digital Influence Group on the project.

“LookSmart has a strong online marketing brand and a long operating history,” said Ted West, chief executive officer and president of LookSmart. “While we did not want to change our trade name, our new corporate identity reflects our commitment to quality search advertising products and services through the company’s proven AdCenter platform, and tenacious delivery of results for search advertisers and web publishers on our search advertising networks.”

The new branding embodies LookSmart’s energy and dedication to providing solutions to both search advertisers and Web site publishers and networks. The new look includes a redesigned logo and Web site, as well as revamped business collateral, for the 12-year-old company.

“LookSmart’s business transition, from a consumer web directory and search engine to a trusted, independent Search Advertising Network and technology solutions provider, was not yet fully addressed,” said Aaron Hughes, senior vice president and creative director of Digital Influence Group. “LookSmart has gone through a compelling evolution and needed a look that captures its leadership position today.”

The new logo and corporate identity are debuting at the Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose, and the Security Research Associates Summer Technology Conference in San Francisco, today. The new LookSmart corporate identity can be seen in the SES Exhibit Hall at booth number 609.

“It is great to see LookSmart’s brand identity reflect the great work the company’s employees have been doing in growing our business in search advertising networks,” said West. “We have emerged as an essential complement to web publishers and search advertisers who seek to go beyond the major search engines to monetize their traffic and extend their advertising reach cost-effectively,” West added.

About LookSmart

LookSmart provides premium and performance advertising solutions for advertisers and publishers. LookSmart offers advertisers targeted pay-per-click (PPC) search and contextual advertising via its Advertiser Networks; and licenses its white label AdCenter technology to top publishers and networks. LookSmart is based in San Francisco, California. For more information, visit www.LookSmart.com or call 415-348-7500.

The company attributes strong growth in paid clicks and market share in 1Q2008 to competitive advertiser ROI, based on day-to-day account management and campaign optimization, and a quality-monitored network with cost-effective PPCs.

“LookSmart’s long-standing commitment to traffic quality and account service to the search advertiser has driven continuous innovation on our AdCenter platform,” said Jonathan Ewert, General Manager of LookSmart Advertising Networks. “Using the platform, our Network Management team improves results for our distribution partners, while our Account Management team creates custom distribution channels to exceed the goals of our advertisers,” Ewert added.

LookSmart’s attention to service and campaign optimization is already winning over search advertisers:

“We experienced increased conversions on LookSmart’s network in 1Q2008, showing dramatic increases for our business,” said Ashleigh Bilodeaux of ServiceMagic. “LookSmart’s marketing professionals made great suggestions on how to optimize our campaigns and the results show it: LookSmart has done a great job of going the extra mile to ensure we see positive performance. For us, LookSmart performance is now on par with our campaigns running on major search engines such as Google, MSN, and Yahoo!,” added Bilodeaux.

A case study on ServiceMagic is available for download from LookSmart’s at: http://www.looksmart.com/pdfs/Advertiser_Solutions/Servicemagic_ casestudy.pdf (Due to its length, this URL may need to be copied/pasted into your Internet browser’s address field. Remove the extra space if one exists.)

About LookSmart

LookSmart provides premium and performance advertising solutions for search advertisers and publishers. LookSmart offers search advertisers targeted pay-per-click (PPC) search advertising, contextual search advertising, and display banner advertising via its Advertiser Networks; and licenses its white label AdCenter technology to top publishers, search engines, media companies, social networking sites, retail sites, directories, ISPs and portals to manage advertiser relationships and third-party feeds all within an auction platform. LookSmart is based in San Francisco, California. For more information, visit www.looksmart.com or call 415-348-7500.

About ServiceMagic

ServiceMagic is the premier online destination in the United States and parts of Canada for homeowners seeking service professionals. Since 1998, they have connected millions of people with local, prescreened home service providers in over 500 areas of expertise, from remodeling to house cleaning.