New search engine helps you track your competitors online

It’s now easier to keep track of competitors, at least online, and chalk out a more effective plan. A Pune based company, (!)Yureekah, has launched a first of its kind search engine, www.yureekah.com, which enables online media buyers to search the sites on which their competitors are running their online advertising campaigns.

The service is targeted at advertisers, media agencies, and small and medium sized business owners.

Devaraj Southworth, co-founder, (!)Yureekah, is confident that the new product will change the way online media is bought in the country. However, this is just the beginning for the company. “Our objective is to develop a collaborative online platform for all online advertising needs,” Southworth says.

The company has restricted the service to display advertising. Contextual advertising will not be part of the search.

Southworth says, “We are in the display advertising space and we hope to replicate the success Google has achieved in the contextual advertising space.”

The service is in the Alpha stage right now, but will move into the Beta stage soon. “With our focus on user experience and on increasing our search results, we do not want to move out of Alpha prematurely, even though we have received a fair amount of positive feedback since our launch,” Southworth says.

How will the service be promoted? “Naturally, as an interactive product, viral promotion will be an important part of our success. However, we will be promoting the service in other ways, including the development of a web browser extension and possible keyword and banner advertising. We are also looking into possible strategic partnerships once additional modules are rolled out,” he says.

(!)Yureekah is a wholly owned subsidiary of 30Seven Holdings, which operates 30Seven Design, a creative services agency, and iThink Labs, an online media planning and buying agency. Apart from Pune, the company has an office in New York, too.