History

NetSprint.pl was founded in 2000 by four private persons as an Internet start-up company.

Our first goal was to create the best search engine in Poland. By using advanced searching algorithms, focusing on Polish users’ needs and utilizing an easy-to-expand hardware platform, we quickly gained new users and portals using our solution.

The Company’s first client was the Hoga.pl portal. In 2001, we started the netsprint.pl website and began to develop a network of portals using NetSprint and displaying our advertisers’ sponsored links. A year later, in 2002, we started our cooperation with Wirtualna Polska, where we placed our search engine. There are no doubts, this cooperation significantly stimulated the development of our search engine technology, but also expanded the coverage of the NetSprint search engine among Polish users. Sponsored links on Wirtualna Polska are presented exclusively by NetSprint.pl.

In 2004 we added local sponsored links to our portfolio. This product was addressed to small and medium companies operating in local markets, which have no need to be presented country-wide. This year we also presented a new, extended version of our search engine. Internet users gained the ability to search images, the PWN encyclopedia database and the comprehensive Ling.pl dictionary. Company’s logo was changed also.

Also this year, NetSprint.pl took the seventh position in the Rising Stars category of the prestigious Fast 50 ranking of the fastest developing technology companies in Central Europe. The ranking was created by the international consulting company, Deloitte.

A year later, in cooperation with Wirtualna Polska, we introduced the Traffic Index – a novel search algorithm, which was one of the first in the world to take into account analysis results from specific websites. This engine allows us to assess the objective value of websites, fight off dishonest website positioning , and present users with valuable and up-to-date content. Moreover, in cooperation with Eniro Polska, we started to present company directory data in our search results. We also included the option to search the Panorama Firm database containing 1,000,000 companies. We also introduced NetSprint.pl/news – the first Polish news search engine.

In 2005, we also started the Adkontekst system developed in cooperation with Wirtualna Polska. The system displays ads matched contextually to the website content and the character of the entire website on partner websites.

This year we introduced NetSprint Intranet – a solution used for searching companies’ internal resources, as part of our strategy of a more intensive presence in the corporate search solution market. The first client who decided to take advantage of our solution in terms of corporate website searching was PTK Centertel. During the years that followed our company gradually worked on search solutions adapted to the needs of major news portals, YellowPages, online stores, and classified ad databases. Other clients who use our corporate solutions include: Eniro, Kolporter S.A., Netia, Agito.pl (the biggest Polish online store offering consumer electronics), PKT.pl or Presspublica (the publisher of Rzeczpospolita).

In 2006, we gained a strategic investor – the international media concern Orkla Media (later Mecom Europe). This allowed us to stimulate the development of our products and provided the basis for the Company’s expansion into foreign markets.

In 2007, in cooperation with the Norwegian company Opoint AS, we introduced the innovative Internet monitoring system under a new brand – NewsPoint. This comprehensive solution can be used to collect and manage news published on the Internet (a total of more than 10,000 portals in numerous European countries).

We introduced several significant improvements into our search engine – we made it possible for users to receive a full answer to a given question at the top of the result list. Thanks to the cooperation with several partners, such as Wirtualna Polska, Panorama Firm, Wikipedia, Autocentrum or the IDG publishing house, NetSprint became the tools provider that helps users to solve their everyday problems. They can look up, for instance, currency rates, movie showtimes in particular cities,  the weather, sports news, as well as materials needed to prepare for a history exam, or learn something about the country which they will visit on vacation. In order to help users find precise answers to their questions, we created the NetSprint Guide (www.przewodnik.netsprint.pl), divided into six main categories: Education, Travel,  Hobby,  Money, Entertainment and  Other.

We also continued to expand our contextual advertising system, whose coverage exceeded 10,000,000 unique users a month in December.

In early 2008 we added graphical ads - Adkontekst Exclusive - to our advertising portfolio. These are contextual ads displayed within the Adkontekst system, which, in addition to the typical advertising copy, include additional graphical elements, such as the advertiser’s logo.

In May 2008, we started a website addressed to advertisers and publishers participating in our contextual advertising system Adkontekst (until then the brand was limited to our partner network). The Adkontekst brand encompassed our advertising portfolio both in the WP.pl and Netsprint.pl search results, as well as in the partner website network. At the same time, we introduced settlements using the auction model, which enables the advertiser to affect the ad position by changing the cost per click.

Simultaneously, we were developing our Internet search engine. In addition to introducing new functions, we also combined our hardware platform with Wirtualna Polska. As a result of this operation, the size of the database of Polish documents that can be searched by users increased significantly. Moreover, fighting spam in search results is now much more effective.

This year, we created a new version of the corporate solution platform – NetSprint Advanced Search Platform (NASP), which is used in all of our new implementations. We implemented the taxonomy model, which allows us to classify documents automatically. Online publishers who keep extensive archives were given the option to increase their revenues several times by using the NetSprint Information Access Platform.