According to an article in MyWay, AskJeeves’ Chief Executive Steve Berkowitz announced that his search engine will be cutting the amount of ads it shows atop the results pages by 31-percent. The report also states, “The company’s tests show that a smaller number of ads boosts the frequency with which people use the site and aids user retention. As such, Jeeves expects the change to help lift query volumes and ad revenue later in the year.”
In the near-term, this will have a negative impact on revenue. But, in the long-term, this move is expected to increase revenues significantly as user satisfaction increases and new visitors come on board. Currently, Google delivers the AskJeeves ads in a contract that runs through 2007.
What a concept! Here’s a company willing to put customer satisfaction first over short-term gains and shareholder satisfaction in order to delay gratification and receive bigger rewards later. Isn’t this the way businesses used to be run before the Me-Generation, Golden Parachutes and CEO salary spikes that put professional athletes’ pay to shame? Anyway, it looks like AskJeeves has decided to do it right and what is so surprising is that this common sense way of doing business should come as any surprise at all.
