In a move that will likely boost the trend toward keyword browsing of the Web, Centraal said it will license its RealNames keyword service to search technology vendor Inktomi (INKT).
Under the terms of the deal, announced Wednesday, Centraal will offer RealNames to Inktomi's Web index and search engine clients, including Yahoo, Microsoft Start, CNET's Snap, the Disney Internet Guide, and Wired Digital's HotBot.
RealNames aims to advance Web navigation by replacing long and complicated "http" addresses with simple keywords.
"This agreement allows existing and future Inktomi customers to easily deploy RealNames functionality in an integrated fashion, providing users with the benefit of intuitive navigation and companies with a compelling way to reach their customers," said Centraal CEO Keith Teare in a statement.
Centraal has focused on partnering with major traffic sites and has taken the lead against competing keyword systems. RealNames is already incorporated into the AltaVista search engine and the LookSmart Web directory. Network Solutions also agreed in December to market, sell, and service RealNames.
Under the Centraal system, companies and individuals that own brands and trademarks can register keywords associated with those intellectual properties.
The deal is a reflection of the company's ambitions to make RealNames part of the very fabric of the Internet.
In October, the company announced an initiative to standardize Web naming within the Net's name infrastructure itself.
The company submitted two proposals for a naming scheme, dubbed Human Friendly Identifiers, to the Internet Engineering Task Force. Centraal authored one of the proposals; the other was a variation created by Network Solutions, the longtime registrar of addresses in the .com, .net, and .org domains.
