Founded in 2005 by CEO Levy Cohen, Collarity is described as "community based search technology that automatically tailors each search to the specific interests of the individual."

Deborah Richman, the senior vice president of Collarity, said, "Collarity is focused on helping Web publishers that are producers of media, whether it's articles, audio, or video. We power media and entertainment – that's our focus."

"Typically searching is based on a word – how often that word shows up in something – but that doesn't mean the result is relevant.... Collarity is the only supplier out there that is using a behavior approach to target search, content discovery and advertizing."

A Google search on 'Bush' may capture many results, ranging from the Bush administration's policies in the Middle East to the burning bush. Collarity, by tracking a person's previous searches, automatically determines a person's personal preferences to help refine one's search to include the most relevant results.

For the Web site owner, Collarity can maintain the site search mechanism and, by tracking searches on the Web site, compile an accurate profile of Web site users and their search preferences. This service allows the Web site owner to view the search dynamics of its user community. With this information, the owners can better tailor the Web site to its users' needs and interests.

Within a single site, Collarity also improves the search experience. As Richman explained, "Collarity is collecting 100 percent of the clicks, of what everyone is looking at on the site, and from that, communities of entries or segments of entries are formed." From the information collated from user clicks, another user can discover what like-minded people have found to be interesting or informative.

In addition to behavior content searches, Collarity also creates advertising that is specifically targeted to a certain type of user by automatically matching Web site ads to a user's search and clicks. As Rob Rustad, Collarity's director of marketing, described, "Collarity forms automatic communities and advertisers can get a narrower focus on their target audience."

The collaboration between Collarity and Ynet was born because, as Richman related, the original founder has personal ties so Israel, "so several of his algorithm experts are in Israel. It was a very easy connection for them to make because they knew that Ynet could vastly improve their searching."

"Ynet needed a way to be able to take advantage of all the communities included on their site and provide more relevant search and navigation for all of their sites."

"It's really exciting for us too, because Ynet is a combination of a portal and a major news site – it's the largest news portal in Israel. One of the things that we've seen is that consumption, how many pages somebody looks at in a given month, is actually higher [in Ynet] by a multiple of four times than the New York Times and twice as many pages per month as CNN."

Since the initiation of the Collarity-Ynet partnership, Richman reports, "Ynet executives have told us about the geometric increase in consumption... so clearly the end users are finding that our results are far more relevant for them."

Collarity earns revenue, Richman explained, "by sharing incremental revenue" that the publisher of the Web sites produce, "because we're creating extra consumption and extra page views."

The Collarity platform profits the Web site owners by benefiting the users. "It's about the experience. I think the user experience has become, 'Ynet is more useful and giving me what I'm interested in.' That's why I think many of the publishers are interested in Collarity.

"The experience leads to much more consumption of their content and they make more money out of advertising as the result of the increased consumption of content."

Ultimately, Richman contends, Collarity provides a human service that connects similar individual users to improve the collective search experience.

"The benefit isn't a technical benefit. Yes, there is the fancy behavioral technology that Collarity provides, but the news is that Ynet users are able to take advantage of what other users like them found interesting.