AskJeeves is rolling out its keyword-based advertiser program on Monday, August 1, 2005 in the first move to break away from a dependence upon Google ads for revenue. Even though the Ask network receives 70-percent of the revenue from the Google ads displayed upon the AskJeeves pages, the extra 30-percent would be a boon to this underdog search engine.
AskJeeves has a contract with Google until 2007 for the delivery of ads upon their search engine results pages. The new AskJeeves ads, however, until that time will be displayed above the Google ads, generating better click-through rates.
But the AskJeeves and its keyword-based advertising program also has some more ambitious goals. According to the MyWay website, “Jeeves will syndicate its ads onto other sites, including InfoSpace Inc. (INSP)’s (INSP) Dogpile, CNET Networks Inc. (CNET)’s (CNET) Search.com and ValueClick Inc. (VCLK)’s (VCLK) Search123.”
Eyeballing the lucrative search engine ad market that Google and Yahoo have cashed in on, AskJeeves is also expected to start delivering ads to its other IAC/InteractiveCorp-owned websites as well. IAC acquired AskJeeves in March 2005 and owns other popular properties such as Expedia.com, CitySearch.com, Hotels.com, TicketMaster.com and Match.com.
Because the search engine marketing cash cow has now grown into an enormous size, its no wonder that the smaller engines want to mark off their stakes (or steaks) as well.
