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Overture is paying $60m in cash and the remainder in shares for AltaVista, bought by technology firm CMGI from Compaq in 1999 for $2.3bn. The acquisition allows Overture, which has been supplying paid-for listings to AltaVista since 2001, to add algorithmic search products including AltaVista's 58 search technology patents, to its portfolio. It will provide AltaVista with additional revenue streams in the form of paid-for services.

"This acquisition gives us a route directly into the consumer market and will allow us to test and refine new products and services in a live setting," Martin Child, UK managing director at Overture, said.

Overture and AltaVista declined to comment on whether the deal would lead to jobs being cut at either company but claimed that the two brands and sites would continue to be run separately in the short term.

"Overture is not a consumer-facing brand and AltaVista is, and we see the two brands as complementary," Kevin Eyres, international general manager at AltaVista Company, said. "We have no intention of getting rid of the individual country sites that we have spent seven years building."

In November, AltaVista abandoned pop-up advertising, as it refocused its business on being purely a search engine. Overture has partnerships with many leading internet companies, including AOL and BTOpenworld. The company rebranded from GoTo.com to Overture in 2001, as it shifted away from a consumer service to providing business-to-business services.

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