Ask Jeeves Reportedly Gearing Up Paid Search Platform

Moving away from Google - Inevitable move

[christopher w]

Another choice for PPC coming soon...

SEARCH ENGINE ASK JEEVES REPORTEDLY plans to soon market its own pay-per-click platform, OnlineMediaDaily has learned. Currently, Google powers sponsored listings on Ask Jeeves. Reportedly, Ask Jeeves' paid search will look similar to Google's system. It primarily will be based on keyword bidding, but with some measure of relevance, such as click-through rates, factored into the advertiser's ultimate cost. The minimum bid will reportedly start at 5 cents.

Full story here [publications.mediapost.com]

[sem4u]

Interesting. Looks like they will have to run Google ads as well for a while though.

[TinkyWinky]

So that would be a loss to Google revenue - wonder how much rev they provide?

Seems the sensible route - seeing as they have been playing around with their own advertising - they may as well do it properly... I would advertise :)

Wonder if they buy MIVA to get a good foothold... already set up (although the platform would need a complete redesign!)

[dutch_dude]

Neat, might provide a great ROI in the beginning while other advertisers have not found out yet.

[voices]

Since I have good listings with them but get no traffic from them.. how would paying for a listing help? They need to get out and promote Teoma more.

[PaulPA]

Should be interesting since Yahoo (through Overture through GoTo) has the US patent (6,269,361) on paid search advertising. Unless what they come up with is really unique (and not patent infringing) the service may not be what advertisers expect.

[sugarrae]

>>>how would paying for a listing help

You are thinking too small. AJ is not their only property viable for PPC. In addition, the current set up right now means that even with a #1 organic position, you are actually #11. Being at number 1 or 3 will likely increase click throughs. I'm not saying the traffic will be massive, I'm just saying that remember that AJ does have some market share - and a whole slew of internet real estate.

[TinkyWinky]

I'm not saying the traffic will be massive

Exactly - but provided it is good quality and justifies the set up time (which I know it will) then it will be a good thing!

Let's hope they do not go down the route of allowing any old affiliate to take the PPC feed - therefore devaluing the offer and reducing the ROI.

[christopher w]

So that would be a loss to Google revenue - wonder how much rev they provide?

Analysts estimate it to be under 2%

[GameMasterM]

Paul, that 361 patent owned by Yahoo is not a slam dunk as far as ownership goes. MIVA and Yahoo are still fighting it out in Federal court as to the validity of it.
In any case Diller could hammer out a license similar to the Google and Marchex deal.
It looks like the PPC buyers will get top three spots. As IACI begins building out ASK search into their other properties the ads will get very decent exposure.

[PaulPA]

GameMasterM - Agreed that a license deal is possible. Also what I saw on the Yahoo and FindWhat case is that Yahoo believes the jury determined infringement did occur. So we will see what happens. My point is that if AJ tries to do it different the advertiser end may not be as robust since much of the patent discusses that side of things.

[goodroi]

I thought we already talk about this two weeks ago? Also the AJ guy was giving some details in New Orleans. [webmasterworld.com...]

[RichTC]

waste of time.

Unless they can seriously increase market share its pointless. Ask just hasnt got the traffic, its as simple as that, well not in the UK anyway.

Our site sees more traffic from the likes of Dogpile and searchy (who) than Ask.

Also, having had top paid premium branding on Ask imo even with top positions you dont get many hits compared with Google, Yahoo or MSN. Whilst you can argue that extra traffic is extra traffic unless they can seriously up the market share imo its not worth the effort.

Will certainly keep an eye on this one incase they did a major market deal and could secure greater market share. A deal with someone like Miva could be a good idea.

[Jon_King]

>>could secure greater market share

Must be something like that in the works. Seems reasonable partnering to increase market share will require new ad deals/revenue sharing with that partner.

[beren]

This could be a good thing for advertisers - it depends whether Ask signs up low quality affiliates and whether we will be able to opt out of those affiliates.

AskJeeves has a small market share, but they have quality traffic. I'd be willing to pay more for their users to see my ads than for users at most engines. And Ask owns some other decent properties: Excite, MyWay, IWon. If you add them all up, you get a fair share of eyeballs.