CarsDirect Signs Subsite Listings Deal With LookSmart

    SAN FRANCISCO--Feb. 15, 2001--LookSmart , (ASX:LOK), the global leader in Web directories, today announced that it has signed a Subsite Listings deal with CarsDirect.com, the leading direct online automotive provider. The deal includes thousands of category listings that will allow CarsDirect.com, to distribute deep content links throughout the LookSmart directory, offering Internet users access to specific auto makes and models and related products on the CarsDirect.com car-buying site. These listings will then appear as search results on major portals, including Microsoft's MSN, AltaVista and iWon. LookSmart Subsite Listings are already generating highly qualified leads for top marketers including Amazon, eBay, Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy, VerticalNet, Deal Time, CNET's mySimon and BizRate.
    With Subsite Listings, an online car shopper can do a search for "Honda Accord" on MSN, and one of the search results will take them directly to a page deep within the CarsDirect.com Web site that offers information on the Honda Accord, as well as links to loan and lease financing, extended warranties and other automobiles available through CarsDirect.com.
    "For etailers like CarsDirect.com, the name of the game is high-volume, affordable, performance-based traffic," said Brian Goler, senior vice president of sales at LookSmart. "Making links to their products and services available to thousands of potential customers at the moment they're searching for that very thing makes Subsite Listings a natural fit for these businesses."

    About LookSmart

    LookSmart helps more than 35,000 businesses harness the power of Internet search to generate qualified leads. As the global leader in building, distributing and monetizing Web directories, LookSmart databases are searched 60 million times a day, through five of the top 10 portals, six of the top 10 ISPs and hundreds of additional ISP and media partners worldwide. LookSmart's distribution network reaches 82% or more than four out of five U.S. Internet users, through Microsoft's MSN, Excite@Home, Alta Vista, iWon, Netscape Netcenter, Inktomi, Time Warner, Prodigy, Juno, CNN, Road Runner, Cox Interactive Media, InfoSpace and Qwest; BTLookSmart, LookSmart's joint venture with BT, deploys LookSmart wireless and Web directory solutions for ISPs, portals and mobile Internet businesses across Europe and Asia-Pacific. LookSmart is headquartered in San Francisco and can be contacted at 415/348-7000.

    Forward-Looking Statements

    This press release contains forward-looking statements based on our current expectations about our industry and our management's assumptions. Actual results could differ for various reasons, such as the possibility that we will not be able to implement the subsite listings program with CarsDirect due to technical or third party problems; that subsite listings will not be utilized by Internet end-users at projected rates; that the parties may not forge an effective online marketing partnership; the potential inability to generate sufficient listings and advertising revenue to reach profitability when planned; and other risks outlined in our annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.