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The sale of Deja.com, one of the oldest Silicon Alley Web firms, was formally completed yesterday when California-based Google Inc. snapped up the company's Usenet, archive and search engine service.

The acquisition included Deja's entire Usenet archive (which dates back to 1995), software, the deja.com and dejanews.com domain names, company trademarks and other intellectual property. Terms of the transaction were not released.

The sale of the remaining assets of Deja.com comes two months after the company's precision buying and customer review arm was sold to Half.com, a subsidiary of Web auction giant eBay.

AtNewYork has learned that that about half of the 20 remaining Deja.com employees would join Google's staff. Sources say Google would take over Deja's New York offices but shift most of the day-to-day operations to its Mountain View, California headquarters.

In a statement, Google said it would make the Usenet search service available at groups.google.com.

"Once the full Deja Usenet archive is added, users will be able to search and browse more than 500 million archived messages with the speed and efficiency of a Google search. In addition to expanding the amount of searchable data, Google will soon provide improved browsing capabilities and newsgroup posting," the Mountain View, Calif.-based company said.

Google, which is backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Capital, said the acquisition creates the "one of the most active and valuable information sources on the Internet."

"We welcome Deja's loyal users into the growing community of Google users worldwide," said Larry Page, Google CEO and co-founder. "With more than 500 million individual messages and growing fast, Usenet and its thriving community is one of the most active and valuable information sources on the Internet."

"The acquisition of Deja's significant assets will enable Google to offer an important new source of information to both Deja and Google users," said Omid Kordestani, Google's VP of business development and sales. "We will continue to build and acquire the necessary technologies to provide the best search experience to millions of Google users worldwide."

Last September, Deja.com laid off 50 of its 140 employees in a cost-cutting move aimed at making the company more attractive to buyers. In February, the company pulled plans for a $57 million IPO and, immediately after, pocketed $12.5 million from a group of private investors.