Inktomi Unveils New Web Search Software

Relevance Modeling, Content Blending and Internet Crawling Technologies Provide the Most Advanced Web Search Platform

Foster City, Calif., March 14, 2001 - Inktomi Corp. (NASDAQ: INKT), developer of scalable Internet infrastructure software, today announced significant enhancements to the Inktomi® Search/Web service, providing its customers with the most advanced software infrastructure for delivering highly relevant, comprehensive search results to Internet users. As the leading OEM search technology provider, Inktomi now incorporates new relevance modeling, content blending and Internet crawling technologies into its Web search platform to offer users continually enhanced search relevance, easier access to the most accurate search results from multiple content sources and a fresher, broader search index. Inktomi customers including America Online, HotBot, iWon, MSN and NBCi have deployed the new Inktomi Search/Web service.

"Today's announcement extends Inktomi's leadership position in OEM search technology innovation with our new Inktomi Search/Web platform," said Troy Toman, vice president and general manager, Inktomi Search Solutions Division. "Inktomi is committed to delivering on our Search Everywhere™ initiative through continued advancement in providing efficient access to all of the content available on the Internet and intranet."

More than half of all Internet users search the Web each day. As more content goes online users need the latest search technology to find accurate information quickly. Search is the most popular application on the Internet following e-mail and continues to become more important with the addition of rich new content sources such as audio and video files, breaking news stories, product listings and intranet content.

"With more than 230 million worldwide users, the MSN network demands serious search technology for delivering the most accurate, comprehensive results to Internet users," said, Bill Bliss, general manager of MSN Search. "We are confident that the Inktomi Search/Web platform will continue to provide us with the most advanced search capabilities to support increased traffic while delivering a consistent and powerful search experience."

Inktomi Search/Web enhancements include:

Relevance Modeling Technology: Built upon Inktomi's core relevance and link, text and click analysis technologies, the enhanced relevance modeling also measures statistically significant samples of search results and compares them with human judgement. By establishing a more advanced methodology for the ongoing development of new classification and ranking techniques, Inktomi continues to deliver new, innovative relevance technologies to its customers.

Content Blending Technology: Inktomi is the first search technology provider to offer new content blending capabilities that combine query results from disparate databases, serving the most relevant results up front. Content blending allows directory categories, standard Web pages and other premium content to be ranked in order of relevancy without being segmented by file type, making it easier for users to find the link they want.

Content Discovery Technology: Inktomi's new distributed crawling architecture scans the Web more frequently, revisiting missed content and refreshing updated pages more often. Inktomi recently announced it is also working directly with content providers to ensure its database has the most current collection of Web documents, including hard to crawl pages such as those containing XML or dynamic content.

Editor Note: Today, at 4:30 p.m., Troy Toman, vice president and general manager, Inktomi Search Solutions Division, will be speaking at Spring Internet World in Los Angeles on the "Future of Search" and will be available for press interviews at the show or by phone.

About Inktomi Search Solutions
Inktomi Search Solutions, which has received broad acclaim for delivering comprehensive and highly accurate Web search results, powers many of the largest Internet portals and destination sites worldwide, as well as some of the largest, most demanding enterprise intranets. Inktomi provides a full range of search services and products from turnkey, hosted solutions to licensed software packages enabling customers to change their business model for providing search without having to change search engines. Inktomi Search Solutions also offers technology for building and maintaining topic hierarchies seamlessly integrated with search functionality, empowering Internet portals, destination sites and enterprises alike to provide their users with a highly efficient and satisfying way to find information.

About Inktomi
Based in Foster City, Calif., Inktomi develops and markets scalable infrastructure software that is essential to the Internetsm. Inktomi's business is divided into Network Products, comprised of industry leading solutions for network caching, content distribution, and media broadcasting; Search Solutions, providing search and content classification products and services to Internet portals, destination sites and enterprises; and Wireless technologies. Inktomi's customer and strategic partner base includes leading companies such as America Online, AT&T, Excite@Home, Intel, iWon, Merrill Lynch, Microsoft, Nokia, RealNetworks, Sun Microsystems and Yahoo! The company has offices in North America, Asia and Europe. For more information visit http://www.inktomi.com/.