Wiseaff

Ask.com's Click Fraud Settlement Coupon Code

So ASK as finally settled their click fraud case, and we got a whopping $12.13 back as a coupon code, the only catch is you have to apply the coupon as a credit against the purchase of at least 2 times that amount in advertising.

"Your advertising coupon may be applied to up to 50% of the cost of online advertising purchased from Ask."

With no plans to advertise on ASK again in the near future, I have a $12.13 coupon code up for grabs.  Anyone still advertising on ASK????

Leave a comment below requesting the coupon code and it's yours.

What will happen to Yahoo?

The battle over Yahoo has been heating up!  This report from Fortune Magazine indicates that Yahoo is in advanced talks with Time Warner to merge with AOL.  In this deal Yahoo would also take on some cash and buy back some of their stock to prevent a Microsoft hostile take over.

The article additionally talks about Yahoo testing running Google ads...

"Yahoo is also looking at a possible advertising deal with Google (GOOG). Just hours before the news leaked of Yahoo’s advanced talks with AOL, the Internet portal announced that it would run a preliminary two-week test to run Google’s search advertising."

Wow, the various ways this deal might go down are mind boggling.

I think this industry would be a lot better if we had a stronger competitor to Google.  A Yahoo / Microsoft merger, or even a Yahoo / AOL merger would be ok, but I don't think the market place looks good of all of Yahoo's traffic is monetized by Google ads.  Sure this might simplify the ad buying process, but Google is a moving target, and I don't think we all want to be more beholden to one source of traffic and revenues.

Personally, I would like to see Yahoo and AOL merge, and then see Microsoft buy them, that would increase the traffic and make make an interesting ad buying opportunity and alternative to Google ads.

5% Cash Back on Yahoo Search Marketing!

Do you run PPC ads on Yahoo Search Marketing?

I just looked at my AMEX bill, and now when you spend money on Yahoo Search Marketing, or on other Yahoo Small Business services, American Express will give you 5% cash back (up to $500 per card).

Not too bad, I have been putting a bunch of our Yahoo ads on Visa, no longer!

Ask.com Exits the Search Engine Space

I guess you don't have to worry about running PPC search ads on ASK.com anymore.  CNN is reporting that ASK.com will no longer be a search engine, and will instead focus on women looking for help managing their lives with a focus on finding answers to the basic questions about recipes, hobbies, children's homework, entertainment and health.

That had to be a hard decision for Barry Diller of InterActiveCorp who bought Ask and its affiliated Web sites for $2.3 billion in 2005.  That will be quite the write-off after spending so much on improving the search engine and buying TV ads to promote it.

Farewell ASk.com, farewell Ask Monkeys:

Will this be a trend in the search engine space?

Part of me still feels like this is some kind of hoax story that got picked up by CNN. Tony first told me about this story the other day from this site, and I didn't believe him.  The Ask.com site still looks like a Search engine to me.  Stay Tuned...