September 25, 2006 | Monday

Ask.com to Revamp Paid Search Platform

By Jon Myers, Director Of Search in Search Engines |Ask

IAC’s Ask.com will have a revamped paid search platform within a couple of weeks, and it’s reconsidering its PPC ad partnership with Google.

Ask, hoping for greater share of the paid search market, will update its platform in the first week in October, giving advertisers more control over daily search budgets, offering real-time billable data, providing additional reporting tools and allowing advertisers to manage campaigns with desktop tools such as spreadsheets, MediaPost reports.

Ask.com recently expanded the available inventory for its own paid-search ads - it also displays pay-per-click ads powered by Google. Ask.com now displays its own paid listings as the top three listings on a page; Google ads are at the bottom, after organic results.

IAC Chairman and CEO Barry Diller this week said increasing search query share is one
his biggest priorities. He also said Ask might replace Google with Yahoo or MSN to power the non-Ask paid search ads.

This will be in the US initially but may have an affect if Ask were to role out Paid Search into the UK network as this is currently powered by Google.