New York, Mar 06: Ask jeeves said on Thursday it would buy Interactive Search Holdings for about $328 million, rocketing the stock by as much as 43% as the company seeks to compete with the top Internet search engines Google and Yahoo. The company said its plan to acquire the owner of search Web sites iWon, Excite and My Search would double Ask Jeeves’ market share in the increasingly cut-throat industry to 7%, and would also boost its profits.

Ask Jeeves said it will issue 9.3 million shares of common stock and options and pay $150 million in cash for closely held Interactive Search Holdings, which has $15 million of cash on its books, making the net cash payment $135 million. Ask Jeeves, based in Emeryville , California , could pay up to $17.5 million more based on Interactive Search’s performance. The companies expect the deal to close by the end of the second quarter.

Interactive Search Holdings and its approximately 200 employees will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ask Jeeves but its operations will remain in Irvington , New York . Bureau Report