Strange results when you type Overture in Google

[Chicken Juggler]

There was a thread [webmasterworld.com] a while back about how Overture was gone out of Google.

I was talking to a fellow WW member this morning and that fact came up. We both typed in Overture into Google to see if it was still true. We saw some weird stuff.

1. Overture has the first 3 adwords ads
2. Overture is still gone from the Google index
3. The first organic result is goto.com
4. Goto.com no longer goes to overture and is a cellphone version of Google

Overture used to be goto.com. Overture is owned by Yahoo. Why would google allow overture to advertise on Google and how can they have the first 3 ads? The whois of goto.com shows a creation date of jan 2004. Why would Overture let go such a valuable domain? Did they sell it or just let it go? Why does overture pay to in google when they were number one for free? Why on earth would any company put User-agent: *Disallow: / on their website and then pay to be included? Overture is such a weird company.

[Chicken Juggler]

I just read this [webmasterworld.com] article. I guess Overture lost it to go2.com or just gave it up rather than fight it.

[Robino]

Did you try clicking on those Ads? They're not actually overture.

[Chicken Juggler]

they all go to Overture for me.

[Slade]

Most of the adwords for orverture are qksrv.net affiliate links, even the ones that say www.overture.com in the domain field. If you're actually ending up at overture.com(I didn't click any), it's because Overture advertises in whoever owns the qksrv.net affiliate network.

[ByronM]

Yeah, most of those ads for overture are simply affiliates trying to get you to signup.