Ask.co.uk

Why are they displaying ads for a competitor?

[IanTurner]

Ask.co.uk are showing an ad campaign for yell.com - this seems to be a very odd relationship since I would have thought that they are in direct competition.

[tigger]

arn't ask owned by Yell/Yellow Pages

[IanTurner]

I don't know about that - if it is true it was the just the information that the question was trying to obtain.

[jamsy]

Yell and Ask are not sister companies.

Yell is part of Yellow Pages who used to be owned by BT until June of 2001 when they where sold to Apax Partners, Hicks Muse Tate & Furst.

Ask is a joint venture between Ask Jeeves International Inc, Carlton Communications and Granda PLC.

If i am not mistaken two of the aforementioned partners of Ask Jeeves where also partners in ITV Digital :(

(edited by: jamsy at 11:41 pm (utc) on Mar. 29, 2002)

[NFFC]

>they are in direct competition

I wouldn't say so, two very different services. The first bit on the Ask SERP's, the "find a plumber in some town" leads to Yell, aol.co.uk have a similar tie in. In the fantasy world of such companies I think it is refered to as partnering, in the real world I think Yell is paying Ask for traffic.

[tigger]

I'm sure I could remember the Yellow pages rep telling me Ask was owned by them, perhaps I was wrong, but I’ll give them a ring next week to see if I can get any more info

[IanTurner]

You are not mistaken jamsy. Ask could have some serious pressure in the near future if you're right.