Web search leader Google will supply online auctioneer eBay with web search advertising outside the United States, and the two will join forces on "click-to-call" adverts that link online shoppers to vendors, the companies said yesterday.

Paid search advertising allows marketers to bid for advertising space next to keyword search results.

EBay, whose shares were up 3 per cent, said that for international online text advertising, it will rely exclusively on Google instead of Yahoo, which in May struck a parallel deal to handle eBay's US adverts.

The eBay contract is part of a string of deals for Google this month. It also plans to begin testing an advert-supported web video syndication system with Viacom's MTV Networks, and it has struck a deal to supply adverts to MySpace users and other web properties of News Corp.

The deal with eBay "is the most important of these areas", Google chief executive Eric Schmidt said.

"You can now see Google's strategy in each of these new markets," Mr Schmidt said of MTV web video, the MySpace community, and eBay e-commerce partnerships.

"These are very large businesses for us."

Separately, on Sunday, Google said it was moving beyond search and advertising into the business software market, starting with a set of web programs for e-mail, scheduling and communications. It plans to add additional programs later.

The eBay partnership indicates that "Google continues to grow not only through rapid innovation, but also through partnerships with premier online properties," Oppenheimer analyst A Sasa Zorovic wrote in a research note.

Financial terms for components of the deal involve revenue-sharing, but the companies did not disclose details.

EBay said it did not expect the agreement to have a material impact on its financial results in 2006 or 2007.