Inktomi focuses on Europe

With data on the Internet growing at a phenomenal rate -- IDC predicts there will be 8 billion documents on the Web by 2002 -- the need for accurate search engines becomes ever more important. A MORI Online survey found 50 percent of those surveyed in the UK are dissatisfied with their preferred search engine. Of those half blamed irrelevant information as the reason for their dissatisfaction.

The European version of Inktomi's search engine will initially offer access to 50 million documents collected and indexed from popular European and global Web sites. Portals and ISPs will be able to customise search services by geography, language or domain as well as incorporate their own content and data. As an example of how the technology will refine searches, typing in the word 'Disney' will give users three options: material about Disney in the news, Web results and company information. Instant translation to another language is also available.

CEO of Inktomi David Peterschmidt believes the key to the European search will be relevancy. "Before now the technology to cope with the many differences and languages in Europe had not crossed the ocean," he said.

Inktomi is due to launch a shopping search engine in the summer, although details of UK partners is not yet available.