RelevancyRank technology to guide the company's foray in the search business through critical analysis of consumer surfing behavior.

Claria, a player in the online behavioral marketing space, today announced the alpha release of Claria's Vista Marketing Services search platform.

Banking on its RelevancyRank behavioral search technology, the new search platform goes beyond analyzing links to pages and hypertext matching and evaluates how consumers actually interact with search results when they are seeking information on the Web, says the company.

RelevancyRank takes into account metrics such as click rates, post-click consumer behavior - such as time spent viewing a site, number of pages viewed at a site, number of return visits to a destination Web site, historical interests based on Web-wide surfing habits, and conversion behavior. In the past, Claria utilized RelevancyRank technology solely to benchmark and evaluate other search engine results, but this alpha release marks the first time this technology has been incorporated into a search engine platform.

"Over time and with more users, these types of personalization technologies will allow consumers a richer, more customized online experience. For example, a college student and a business executive who are both searching for 'hotels in China' would appreciate vastly different results. Ultimately, this is the power that personalization can provide - with technology automatically customizing information for the consumer," said Jeff McFadden, president and CEO of Claria.