Third-party PPC inclusion into Inktomi ...

Is this what's happening here?

[Hawkgirl]

If I typo one of my main keywords in inktomi, several sites pop up belonging to my competitors. However, these listings aren't under "www.competitorurl.com" - they're under "http://ads.athirdpartyurl.net/" with a unique number on the end of the URL.

(I've seen multiple competitors all listed this same way ...)

Is this one of those "We'll get your keywords submitted into the database and charge you a PPC" deal that I've been hearing about?

If so, is this pretty legit?
If not, can someone tell me what the heck is going on?

:)

Thanks.

[hurlimann]

Could be as you say based on PPC.

Mostly I've seen it with upfront fes: ie Pay us 300USD and we will get you listed high. These rogues control the url ( It will divert to your site with meta refresh or click here button) and thus can come back for more money as per their TOS.