shorebreak - 4:51 am on Jul 30, 2004 (gmt 0)

Those numbers don't mean nothin' unless they have the stamp of approval of... all of you on this board who are advertising on Ask Jeeves.

Putting aside the traffic you get from AdWords on AskJeeves/iWon/Excite, do any of you advertisers have anecdotes on the growth of your traffic (paid or otherwise) from either Ask Jeeves specifically, or the greater Ask/ISH?

These growth numbers sound great and all, but conversely I read an interesting Hitwise May 2004 report saying that while AskJeeves market share grew 39% 8/03-4/04, ISH's market share shrunk 38.5%. Given ISH's absolute market share was 3X AskJeeves' as of 8/03 that would seem to imply that ASKJ/ISH as a whole lost significant market share during that period.

Again, though, what I'm trying to educate myself on is not market share but traffic volume, so if any of you can speak to ASKJ/ISH traffic growth/shrinkage, I'd love to hear about it.

Thanks,
Shorebreak