Overture Services Inc, which operates some of the world's biggest internet search engines, will create more than 250 jobs at a new network and sales facility in Dublin.
The US company will formally announce the multimillion euro investment next week and plans to set up a new European hub at the East Point Business Park.
The investment, which comes just a month after the Google search engine said it would set up an Irish facility, is another major coup for the Government's plan to develop an e-hub in Dublin.
Overture, which is not yet well known in the wider internet community, owns some of the biggest search engines, such as Altavista and Overture.com. Unlike Google, Overture integrates adverts into its searches and receives royalty payments from advertisers when a person performing a search clicks on a site.
This "pay for performance" search model was developed by the firm in 1998. It enables advertisers to bid for search result placement on specific keywords relevant to their businesses.
But Overture's real strength lies in its advertising distribution network, which supplies search engine advertising for outfits such as Yahoo in the US and the Microsoft Network (MSN). It operates a revenue share model with these firms and has delivered a strong operating performance despite the sharp technology downturn.
The firm generated revenue of around $667.7 million (€620 million) in 2002 and has a lengthy list of partners, including Microsoft, Yahoo, Wanadoo and AOL Europe. Overture's success is underlined by its acquisition of much better known search engine Altavista for more than $140 million in February.
An Overture spokeswoman would not comment on the firm's Irish investment plans yesterday. But it is understood the company, which is based in Pasadena, California, will make the formal jobs announcement on Monday.
Overture plans to hire at least 250 administration, marketing, engineering and sales staff for its Dublin office. It will also locate hundreds of computer servers at its East Point facility that will be used to power its internet search engines.
It is believed the company was lured to the Republic with the promise of cheap international telecoms capacity and a ready supply of skilled technology and marketing staff. Telecoms cables linking the Republic to international networks built in the past two years by firms such as Global Crossing and 360networks have dramatically cut the cost of hosting Web traffic from Dublin.
This has enabled IDA Ireland to successfully pitch for business from leading Web search engine firms such as Google and Overture.
Last year Microsoft located its Web servers in Dublin and it plans to distribute software to its customers over the internet sometime in the future.
Overture, formerly known as GoTo.com, was founded in September 1997. It floated on the Nasdaq stock exchange in 1999 and trades under the symbol OVER.
