MSN AdCenter Now Includes Ask.com

[martinibuster]

You can now purchase keywords on Ask.com and their partner sites (iWon etc.) through MSN AdCenter.

Story here [informationweek.com].

The addition of Ask.com's sites to its paid search service will expose Microsoft's customer listings to an additional 5% of search traffic.

That takes Microsoft's network a step closer to Yahoo, which in June captured 25.1% of all search traffic...

[pontifex]

interesting find martinibuster, thanx as always!
P!

[TheRealTerry]

I'm having a little trouble understanding exactly what this means for the SEM pro. I was at first hoping that this meant there wdWould be a stand alone app like the powerful Google AdWords Editor for working with accounts for both MSN and Ask, which would be great. But as I read it looks to me like a dumbed down version of the regular MSN AdCenter interface that also gives you access to Ask ads for the casual advertiser. Is that a correct assumption?

[jeffgroovy]

That might be kinda cool. My experience with Ask was that the traffic was quality, but the price was too great to justify marketing there, at least with the niche I tried anyway. I'll have to try Ask again under the AdCenter umbrella. Maybe if Microsoft heaps a few more 2nd tier search engines into AdCenter, and incentivise a lot more searches outside of the gaming industry, then they might be able to contend with Yahoo for a distant second to Google.

[pageoneresults]

Is this a sign of things to come? Will MSN purchase Ask to solidify that #3 market position?

[aleksl]

Very interesting. I don't want MS to purchase Ask, let Ask use their own resources to get traffic.

If they go down the list of top 300 or so non-chinese sites/networks, then may be they will be able to work out traffic deals to get a few percentage points on Google and Yahoo. Although it gets crowded in top 100, most of these are taken...a few social networks and photo sites left, not many buying customers there...

Maybe MS can hook up with a larger domainers for a traffic deal ;)

[offtop]
Maybe I should suggest...
Idea 1: a #1 russian search engine is about to go public at $1 billion dollars offering. It has their own ad network...if MS can purchase a bulk of it, maybe they'll get a) another revenue stream, b) will stick a fork in Google's attempt to take over Russia's fast growing internet market (#25 and #40 sites on Alexa), and c) will finally get acquainted with a huge doorway and other gray method traffic generation that is so big in Russia.

Is it going to help with % points overall? Definitely. In US? Nah, probably not immediately

Idea 2: buy a doorway and other gray method traffic generator Searchfeed, or a similar network.
[/offtop]

[exposure]

What the heck is adManager and, more specifically, what is "Microsoft Office Live's adManager Beta search advertising service"?

Is that a new name for adCenter? I certainly hope not. MS has inappropriately named too many web products over the last three years so I hope this isn't another one.

[RhinoFish]

ask is bad enough, but including ask's partners... ouch.

hope they make it easy to opt out.

if this is the beginning of the growth of MSN's partner network, what comes after Ask... Miva and 7search and abcsearch? why commingle a 2nd tier engine with a first tiers ads? answer is, share. nobody's talking about quality, just share.

i think a closer eye on roi for msn ads is in order.

and i've got my fingers crossed for seeing that opt out button, but i won't be holding my breath.