Ask.com Advertising Search Results on Google?
Sep 26th, 2008 by msdanielle
I found a curious PPC ad tonight on Google. I was doing a search for “cosmetics coupons” while researching keywords for one of my campaigns. Here’s the screen shot of what I found:
You’ll notice the fourth ad is for Ask.com. Hmmm. Am I the only one that finds that peculiar? If anything, the ad definitely caught my eye first, so the advertiser at least got my attention!
But is Ask.com really advertising search results listings in Google AdWords or is this some weird hoax? It’s not like eBay or Target or even Shopping.MSN.com, where a massive company is leading you to a search listing of goods, comparison sites, or products to bid on. The ad actually leads to Ask’s search results page for the term “coupons.”
So I figured I’d try to play Sherlock Holmes and see where the ad was coming from. If you hover your mouse over the ad and copy and paste the link to a text editor, you’ll find the destination URL embedded in the link. Most of the time these are re-directs. This link is re-directing through Everesttech.net, which appears to be associated with Efficient Frontier. They’re an agency which also allows clients to use their bid management software. Since I’ve never used them, my investigation ends there.
I just think the whole thing is odd…dare I say desperate. Someone needs to Tell.com them to throw in the towel. Is anyone else curious, or have feedback or thoughts on the ad? Are they so lacking in users that they have to place their search results into AdWords paid listings? What do you think?
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I remember reading about Ask.com advertising through google adwords sometime last year for some insurance terms.
The reason for the ads isn’t merely to get new users for their search results, but they probably calculate how many of the users who click through on the Google ad, go ahead and click through on an ad on their own site. The conversion from Google ad to Ask.com ad can make this a simple arbitrage setup and Ask.com could be making money out of the whole thing.
yea i agree, i was thinking that too. i wonder if they’re making money off it. i’m so curious. but do you think it’s at all odd that another search engine is performing arbitrage on google? meaning, would it be surprising to you if you saw yahoo or live doing this?
I agree with you here another search engine that is not heard of as much is Xoole Search which is setup pretty nice I can be within the results and on the right side for like 50 a month. I have been using them for about 2 months now and they are bring in some great traffic for me should check them out http://www.xoole.com
Also one thing I have noticed with Google, Yahoo, MSN they let them put words that dont match there site at all like ask.com did, now whats up with that. Thats why I like Xoole because they give advertisers the words to bid on not the other way around. I think Xoole has a good idea and all should do this to lower fraud like this.
Thanks
Maurice
I find the whole thing rather odd…my first thought was whether they have some sort of affiliate program where if you direct someone to their site you get like half a cent or something and this is someone trying to capitalize on that.
I’ve also seen these ask.com sponsored listings on G.
Google is now running the internet as he own it, It is really bad to see the unipower at this stage.
Some one should compete with Google