Ilse.nl aquires vindex.nl

Dutch search engines in the news

[Damian]

Ilse Media Group (owner of Ilse, the most popular search engine in the Netherlands) has bought the Dutch search engine Vindex (vindex.nl).
The take over took place june 1st.

Vindex used to be the second most popular search engine in the Netherlands (with Ilse being the most popular), but the past years Vindex lost a lot of market share. The founders of Ilse and Vindex once started out together in Ilse I think.

[HitProf]

Hi Damian,

Ilse may be the most popular Dutch (based) search engine, it's by no means the most popular SE in the Netherlands and Vindex is a a lot smaller. Vindex used to be the #2 Dutch based engine but that's a long time ago.

See also [webmasterworld.com...]

[Damian]

You're right HitProf, I should have written 'Dutch based' where I wrote 'in the Netherlands'.

[misja]

But why did Ilse buy Vindex? Vindex has (as far as I know)no technology that Ilse doesn't have and the Vindex's traffic is not that big compared to Ilse or Startpagina (if you look at the Alexa ratings).

I can see why IDG wanted to sell Vindex but not why Ilse wants to aquire Vindex.

[heini]

>why
good question. Perhaps it was a bargain...
In any case Vinden still holds a small percentage in the market, plus it's an established brand.

[takagi]

'Vinden.nl' (a metasearch engine using data from Altavista, Alltheweb, Google, Hotbot, Lycos, Teoma, OPD, Wisenut and Yahoo) is not related to 'Vindex.nl' (a real search engine).

More info on this news on webwereld [webwereld.nl] (Dutch).

Summary
Owners (IDG 2/3, Mr. Weikamp 1/3) sold it to Ilse Media Group for an undisclosed sum. The reason for IDG to sell Vindex was that it didn't fit anymore in the strategy of the online IDG.nl division. The take-over includes the source code, technology and name.

Vindex was started when Mr. Weikamp and Ilse split up some 6 years ago. For some time Vindex was the most popular search engine in The Netherlands. Later it lost market share to Ilse, Vinden.nl, MSN.nl and especially Google. It is unknown if Vindex will remain.

Overview of SE marketshare in The Netherlands:

June 2001 [webmasterworld.com]:
1. Ilse.nl 44.7% (43.4)
2. Vindex.nl 12.7% (15.1)
3. Altavista.nl 9.8% (9.2)
4. Altavista.com 7.3% (6.3)
5. Google.com 7.1% (2.5)

July 2002 [webmasterworld.com]:
1. Google: 43%
2. Ilse: 28%
3. AltaVista: 4%
4. IxQuick: 4%
5. Vindex:3%

May 2003 [webmasterworld.com]:
1. Google 51.3%
2. MSN 16.1%
3. Ilse 7.5%
4. Yahoo 7.3%
5. Lycos 4.8%
6. Vinden.nl 4.4%
7. Ixquick 3.6%

[heini]

Good post, thanks Takagi. And, my bad for sloppy typing: It's about Vindex, not Vinden.

[takagi]

Never mind. There is even a metasearch engine called 'vindin.nl' but that one has a very low market share.

[vitaplease]

Bedankt voor dit nieuws!

Ilse should concentrate on their own qualtiy and on more frequent spidering by the Wiseguys instead of focussing away on this aqcuisition.

IMO, if it wasn't for startpagina.nl leading by default to Ilse, I wonder what market share they would have now.

[misja]

This is a new article [planet.nl] (in Dutch) about Vindex and Ilse's plans to add more entertainment services.

Ilse's CEO Molenaar says "I know what I want to do with Vindex, but I can't tell". He also says that he wants to expirement with search technologies on the Vindex domain. First results should be online next month.

I'm a bit sceptic about this ... So what was wrong with beta.ilse.nl to experiment with new technologies?