The Inimitable Web Site

A fan of British rock act the Cure wants to check out the band’s site on the World Wide Web. Not the one developed by the record label or hundreds of others created by fellow admirers. He wants the official Cure site, the one spawned out of singer Robert Smith’s Powerbook and maintained from the back of the musician’s tour bus.

So the fan goes to an online search engine--say, Yahoo!--and punches in the band’s name. The result--227 sites to wade through before stumbling across www.thecure.com

A Laguna Niguel pair insist navigating the Web needs to be easier. In May, advertising executive Rob Cummings and Web developer Pak Wong launched Keyword.Com based on a seemingly obvious concept. Instead of advertising a long, complicated address, companies can register a certain phrase with Keyword.Com and use it to jump people directly to their site.

With the rock band example, singer Smith could stop by Keyword.Com and--for $75 a year--register certain terms. “The Cure” could link to the band’s homemade front door. And “Smith” could jump to the performer’s electronic library.

But Internet experts say it’s not that simple. Instead of offering a selection of company sites that use the phrase “Smith”--say, Smith Technologies or Smith and Wesson--Keyword.Com relies on a first-come, first-serve registration process.

This is the same method used by Network Solutions Inc., a company in Virginia that has long doled out Internet addresses. The subsequent digital land grab quickly turned into a severe real estate crunch, as cyber-squatters registered addresses based on company and product names. Then, they would sell the addresses to the highest bidder.

Experts say the Keyword concept could work for companies looking for additional ways to draw traffic.

“But it will only work if Keyword actually gets people to go to [Keyword’s] site in the first place,” said Tim Brady, director of production for Yahoo!

Cummings admits the company has not received a single registered term, but says he expects several of his clients to join next month.

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P.J. Huffstutter covers high technology for The Times. She can be reached at (714) 966-7830 and at p.j.huffstutter@latimes.com.