Lycos redirect

www.lycos.com, where does it lead you?

[perkoch]

I apologize if this is a topic that have been covered before. If it is, I cannot find it.

Lycos is one of the search engines that are trying to be helpful, leading visitors to the nearest local site. This is very annoying if you are trying to use the services found at the major international site, but I can see that there is some sense to it.

Anyway, Lycos is now redirecting Norwegian visitors using the www.lycos.com address to a site called Netguide Nettavis, which appears to be a combination of a separate portal called Netguide and the Norwegian online newspaper Nettavisen.

There is actually *no* Lycos logo on the page, although there is a search engine powered by Lycos. So much for Lycos branding.

This search form appears to be the same as the one on the Norwegian Spray site, which, of course, is also owned by Terra Lycos.

My question is: Do you know of any other national versions of Lycos that are not branded as such?

The German NZ cannot be considered one, as there is a regular Lycos site at [lycos.de...] (http://www.netzeitung.de/servlets/page?section=1). Swewden has also a separate Lycos portal, although it is clearly influenced by Spray (http://lycos.spray.se/).

The Norwegian "Lycos"-site can be found at [nettguide.nettavisen.no...]

To be sure to get to the American Lycos, use [www-english.lycos.com...]

[snappa]

Check this out (it's in danish)......
[jubii.dk...]

Hope that will give you some answers

[rencke]

Hello Per,
I can only give you a partial answer; After Lycos Europe bought Spray, they renamed all sites Lycos except the ones in Norway and Sweden, due to their large local market share.

After that, Spray bought Jubii, Denmark's #1 directory and (Fast based) search engine, but did very wisely not rename it. So the links at the bottom of Spray.se and Spray.no's main pages lead to Lycos sites everywhere except in Denmark, where it leads to Jubii. But if you click Denmark from e.g. Lycos.de you get Lycos.dk.

And as you can see from the link snappa provided, Lycos has also bought French MultiMania, which has a very good brand name. It continues to exist under its own brand name with a very discreet Lycos logo at the bottom of the page and alongside Lycos.fr.

Clear as mud?

[perkoch]

Thank you very much for your help! This is exactly what I was looking for.

It certainly makes sense to keep strong brand names like Jubii and Spray. Still, I'm surprised that the Lycos trade mark isn't more prominent. Given the global nature of todays communications, international campaigns for Lycos, could ultimately benefit the Scandinavian sites, as well.