25 April 2007

Ask to launch new ad network

The popular search engine Ask.com is launching a new project designed to rival Google's AdSense network, it has been revealed this week.

Ask Sponsored Listings, which has just gone operational, offers advertisers the opportunity to place their adverts besides search results from Ask.com

Advertisers will be charged on a cost-per-click basis, which means that they only have to pay Ask when a prospective customer actually clicks on their advertisement.

Ask is currently lagging behind the market leaders in the search engine sector.

According to comScore search engine rankings for March 2007, Google dominates with a 48.3 per cent market share, Yahoo! is second with 27.5 per cent and Microsoft has 10.9 per cent.

Ask is in fourth place with a 5.2 per cent share, but this still represents around 380 million searches each month in the US alone.

Ask Sponsored Listings is the latest move by the site, formerly know as Ask Jeeves, to encroach on territory traditionally dominated by Google.

Last month saw the launch of AskCity, an online facility that allows US-based users to see maps to the businesses for which they are searching.

These maps can then be converted into aerial photographs which rival the quality of Googlemaps.

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