Inktomi Kicks Off Holiday Shopping Season with Strong Growth in Paid Inclusion Services; Targeted Traffic to Inktomi Index Connect Subscribers Increases More Than 100% from 2001.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

FOSTER CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 4, 2002

Inktomi Corp. (Nasdaq:INKT) today announced it has begun the holiday shopping season with strong growth in its search marketing programs, more than doubling traffic delivered to Web sites participating in the Inktomi(R) Index Connect(TM) program during the same period last year. The leading provider of OEM Web search and paid inclusion services, Inktomi provides highly relevant search results to portal partners such as MSN and HotBot. Through Inktomi paid inclusion programs, consumers can find deep Web content for the products or services they are seeking, significantly enhancing the online shopping experience. According to a recent study by Nielsen/NetRatings, online shopping for the start of the holiday season was up nearly 30 percent from last year.

"The paid inclusion business has been a major driver of revenue for Inktomi Web Search and we are pleased with the continued growth of our search engine marketing programs," said Vishal Makhijani, vice president and general manager of Web Search at Inktomi. "The expansion of our subscriber base and increase in qualified leads to subscribers proves that paid inclusion, with its measurable ROI and high conversion rates, has become an important element of any marketing campaign."

Inktomi's paid inclusion services are comprised of two programs: Inktomi Index Connect and Inktomi Search Submit(TM). Inktomi Index Connect is a pay-for-performance program tailored to large Web sites with more than 1,000 URLs. Inktomi Index Connect subscribers pay fees based on sales leads delivered to their sites from Internet portal searches powered by Inktomi. Smaller content providers can join Inktomi Search Submit, a flat-fee, subscription-based service that provides inclusion in the Inktomi Web Search index and an automatic 48-hour refresh of the submitted content. Inktomi's paid inclusion programs provide users with access to data not typically discovered by search engines, including database-driven, dynamic and subscription-based content.

Inktomi paid inclusion programs complement other online marketing offerings such as paid placement by allowing Internet portal users searching for specific products and services to be directed immediately to the detailed Web pages containing the content they are seeking. Unlike paid placement, paid inclusion does not affect the ranking of search results, but instead ensures deep, up-to-date content is included in the Inktomi Web Search index and presented only when relevant to users. As a result, paid inclusion programs deliver higher conversion rates than other pay-for-performance programs. To date, Inktomi's paid inclusion programs have generated more than 500 million highly qualified sales leads to subscribing content providers.

Last month, Inktomi launched the next generation of its Internet search technology, Inktomi Web Search 9, delivering significantly improved relevance and the freshest search results in the industry from more than 3 billion documents. With Inktomi Web Search 9, Inktomi introduced new paid inclusion features such as Index Connect Geotargeting, which allows online marketers to better target regional audiences. For more information regarding Index Connect, Search Submit and Inktomi Search Marketing Solutions visit http://www.inktomi.com/products/web_search/sms.html.

About Inktomi

Based in Foster City, Calif., Inktomi is a leading provider of Web search and enterprise information retrieval products. Inktomi pioneered and is the leading provider of OEM Web search and paid inclusion services for top consumer portals, Internet destinations and e-commerce sites worldwide. Its Web search customers and partners include Amazon.com, eBay, HotBot, MSN and WalMart.com. On Nov. 13, 2002, Inktomi announced a definitive agreement to sell its enterprise search business to Verity, Inc. For more information, visit http://www.inktomi.com.

Note to Editors: Copyright (c) 2002 INKTOMI CORPORATION. All Rights Reserved. Inktomi, Index Connect, Search Submit and the tri-colored cube logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Inktomi Corporation in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks and company names referenced herein are the property of their respective holders.