Ask Jeeves to Reduce Paid Ads

[rustybrick]

Gary Price posted a blog entry (http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/050428-104538) summarizing the recent news about Ask Jeeves recent profit news. In that report he reports that 70% of AJ's revenue was from Google Ads. That is simply huge. I believe, AJ accounts for about 10% of Google's revenue. Anyway, even though the PPC ads from Google accounts for 70% of AJ's revenues, Steve Berkowitz said in this article (http://finance.myway.com/jsp/nw/nwdt_rt.jsp?section=news&news_id=dji-00141020050427&feed=dji&date=20050427&cat=INDUSTRY) that:

Berkowitz said that, in a bid to improve the user experience with the search engine, the company began to implement a program in early April to reduce by 31% the number of ads it shows at the top of its results pages. 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.

Better user experience = repeat visitors = less ads on an individual searchers page = more ad impressions = more revenue for Ask Jeeves.

[krisval]

Better user experience = repeat visitors = less ads on an individual searchers page = more ad impressions = more revenue for Ask Jeeves.

Very Very true statement, but it takes a gut check and some patience to implement this philosophy. In the long-run, pay less for traffic and receive more direct referrals. I am guilty of going for the quick buck, but I am trying to make myself move more towards this.

[NoMass]

Well it was about time!! I absolutely refused to use Ask because half of my time was spent trying to wade through the oceans of sponsored listings to get to the "real" results. It was basically a listing of only "sponsors". Useless for finding any "relevant" results.
I remember when Ask first started to become popular; it was about 4-5 years ago. I remember trying the search out, and not being too impressed with the results. I used it a few times, but then never again. I only tried it out again about 1 month ago. I did one search. I will NEVER use it again. The amount of paid listings made me want to vomit out of disgust. Maybe its just because I’ve become use to the clean and not overly sponsored listing of google....

[ezhilraja]

thats a great news. just bcos of the ads, users got away from ask. now it would be very tough for ask to brign back those lost traffic.

[I, Brian]

Better user experience = repeat visitors = less ads on an individual searchers page = more ad impressions = more revenue for Ask Jeeves.
It's a shame more aspiring search engines don't bear this in mind.

For example, Chris Sherman wrote about Dogpile's recent enhanced search tools:
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3504666

but they haven't actually enhanced the search results - one search I tried offered 20 results, of which only 6 were organic:
http://www.platinax.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=2231

I think a lot of webmasters are looking for alternatives to Google, but too many smaller search engines prostitute relevancy for advertising. As before, it makes for short-term profit, but it kills long-term branding and user interest.

As pointed out above, moving away from entirely bulking up search with ads is one issue - but now AJ will have to convince people that they are actually worth using again.

One of Google's great marketing strategies has been to tap into user habits, so that once the greatest perceived benefits are removed, the user continues with the product anyway, out of habit.

That is precisely what Ask Jeeves has now to work against - as with any smaller search engine that has let it's appearance of value slip.