Infoseek Wins Head-To-Head Battle Against Search Engine "Spam"

Infoseek's Anti-Spam Task Force Delivers 66 Percent Less Spam than Competitors

SUNNYVALE, Calif. - April 21, 1998 - Infoseek Corporation (Nasdaq: SEEK) beat the competition in a recent Search Engine Spam Survey undertaken by Search Engine Watch (www.searchenginewatch.com), an industry newsletter aimed at providing customers with in-depth comparative reviews and information on the leading search engines. By entering the same query for "Monica Lewinsky" - a topical and natural target for spammers - into search engines Alta Vista, Excite, HotBot, Infoseek, and Lycos, only 10 percent of Infoseek's search results could be considered spam, or irrelevant results. This was 66 percent less spam than the nearest competitor, whose results were 30 percent spam. In addition, the Infoseek results were twice as relevant as any competitor's and were given the highest rating.

"It's important to us that our customers find what they're looking for when they come to Infoseek, and not a lot of irrelevant results," said Sue LaChance, director of technology products at Infoseek. "Spam is a detriment to an overall meaningful experience for our customers, so we've made it our priority to fight against it."

There are two primary categories of Internet spam: email spam, where someone sends solicitation emails, or search spam, which comes from webmasters who try various techniques to subvert search engines in order to appear more frequently or higher in search results. For example, they may overuse repetition of keywords to describe their Web page. Search spam is what most affects search engines like Infoseek. While this type of spam has been largely associated with porn sites, it can be lucrative for commerce sites as well, and so has become a popular method for "spammers" seeking free advertising.

Anti-Spam Task Force
The Infoseek Anti-Spam Task Force consists of Infoseek engineers, Customer Service personnel, and other employees, and is continuously monitoring search results to ensure their relevancy. This team meets weekly to identify new issues surrounding spam and to generate initiatives to combat spam more efficiently. They also respond immediately to any spam-related reports received by Customer Service. In addition to using filters during the indexing process, Infoseek manually reviews popular topics and removes any spam found.

Other techniques Infoseek employs to ensure viewers are presented with only relevant results include clustering and integration of search, directory and content channels. By clustering search results, Infoseek groups multiple pages from the same site as one result so that viewers can see a variety of content sources. By integrating its search, directory and content channels, Infoseek helps users narrow their queries and directs them to manually reviewed areas. For instance, if a user is searching for "car," they are directed to the Automotive Channel where they can find related directory topics such as "Buying a Car" and offerings from relevant partners. All of these features add up to a more productive, effective online experience for Infoseek customers.

About Infoseek
Based in Sunnyvale, Calif., Infoseek Corporation (Nasdaq: SEEK) is a connected media company and a leading Internet navigation service that is designed to be everyone's first choice on the Internet. In addition to the Infoseek Internet service, Infoseek licenses its Ultraseek Server search and navigation software to companies for their own intranet, extranet and Internet sites.

Infoseek is one of the most popular sites on the Internet because its search service is both easy to use and extremely powerful, allowing both novice and professional users to find information on the Web quickly and easily.

By offering intelligent channels and one of the world's largest directories of Web sites organized by topic, Infoseek provides consumers with a familiar and meaningful search experience in addition to accurate, high-quality search results. Infoseek has commerce and/or content arrangements with entities including AmeriTrade Holding Corporation (Nasdaq: AMTD), Auto-By-Tel, Borders Group, Inc. (NYSE: BGP), CMP Media, Inc. (Nasdaq: CMPX), Datek Online, Inc., DLJ/Direct, Microsoft Corporation (Nasdaq: MSFT), PeopleLink Inc., Bell Atlantic (BEL), UPS, and Reuters. Infoseek's World Wide Web site and Internet navigation services can be accessed at http://www.infoseek.com. For more information on Infoseek's software portfolio, visit http://software.infoseek.com.