Perfecting Web search

IncuBeta specialises in search optimisation, making sure its clients show up near the top of online searches, so generating sales for them.

The company launched in 2003 with cash raised through the sale of Vinny`s home and an investment by his fiancée and two friends. The four entrepreneurs first set up shop in Vinny`s Illovo townhouse and later moved the operation to Cape Town.

IncuBeta has quickly grown to become what is now one of the world`s biggest search optimisation companies, which helped generate about $50 million dollars in online revenue for its clients last year, and earned about $5 million in turnover for itself in the process. The company expects to double its turnover this year. It has around 50 staff members in SA, as well as a US subsidiary called Clicks2Customers, and is due to open another office in the UK this year.

Lingham was also recently invited to join the world-renowned Society of Industry Leaders network of practitioners, due to his expertise in online media.

BOOSTING CAPACITY

Lingham says the US summer generally sees a slowdown in business, so his team is spending the time focusing on increasing its system`s capacity to handle up to one billion keyword listings, from the current technology cap of about 25 million.

"We have had such a huge growth upturn in the past year, that this has been a necessary technology upgrade. Given that Google alone processes over 200 million searches a day, with MSN and Yahoo doing a similar amount combined, the opportunity to increase our presence lies in our databases` ability to handle volumes which are quite large."

"In addition to just capturing the data, we only need to process and utilise decision support systems (DSS) to ensure that our marketing campaigns are run optimally."

Lingham says much of his time is also spent travelling to the US and Europe, signing up new clients. All but one of the firm`s clients are overseas, he says. The firm doesn`t even bother trying to sign up local firms, he says, because South African companies are years behind in terms of optimising their websites.

Pressed to elaborate, he says that for example, South Africans are overly enamoured of flash sites and many other "aesthetically pleasing, yet functionally retarded features", which he says can`t be read by search engines.

KEY SEARCH TRENDS

Lingham notes that user-generated content and networking is growing hugely popular online, especially from services such as Flickr (a photo sharing service), Del.ic.io.us (Social Bookmarking) and My Web (personalised search).

"Yahoo seems to be leading the pack with an integrated portal service that has dominant market share, and Google is still producing Beta products, but even so, they are impressive services that still need to catch up in terms of market share. Search is moving toward being more personalised by integrating user generated content and knowledge to provide more relevant results." -

He notes in his blog that "Search engines, in general, need to seriously look at what drives users to search and how to maximize their revenues from search in order to create a virtuous cycle (the more money you make from search driven by user satisfaction, the more it tends to self- perpetuate and so on)."