However, if they’re trying to promote themselves as a category killer (aka an authority site), and they’re not clearly the best in that category; then some reserve is warranted. There are benefits to having people go to your front page, and trusting your editorial descression over a search engine or agregator.

The magazines and other content providers offer search just like the engines do. The BBC and A9 probably do it best, with their well placed inclusion of Google results. A magazine industry or individual content producer owned portal similar to either site would be a good way to go.

Having a strong search engine of their own allows them to remain/become the authority they want to be. It would also be a great tool for selling people paid content.

But only if it was very large would it become many people’s second or third search engine – a vital prerequisite for restricting access to their free content. Before then, it should still make at least some of it’s free content available, as free advertising for their service.

BTW Looksmart already has a magazine search engine. It can be found at http://www.findarticles.com. It’s not particularly successfull, but that could well be due to a lack of marketing.

The web is about syndication and distribution. By blocking their content they further lower their distribution levels making their ad space worth a decent amount less.

Even if they made their own proprietary search engine some of the magazines participating in the portal project would most likely manipulate the results there for their own gain…it is just an all around dumb idea!!!