Ask.com Replacing MSN and Google

Search portal Lycos has asked Ask.com to replace MSN and Google as the organic search and paid listings provider on the portal’s sites. MSN Windows Live had provided all of the natural results while Google provided the paid search results.

by Kristina Knight

The move should help Ask.com boost brand recognition. Andew Moers, vice president for business development and syndication at Ask said (via MediaPost), "This partnership will broaden the reach of Ask sponsored listings, both expanding the inventory and network for Ask advertisers as well as promoting ASL [Ask Sponsored Listings] to companies interested in advertising on the Lycos properties.” The move should also begin boosting paid search revenue for Ask’s parent company IAC, which showed strong growth in Q3 thanks in part to the search engine.

Company statistics indicates that Ask.com garnered 5.8% of all search queries in September, moving the portal to fourth place overall and displacing AOL which had 5.6% of queries. Google ranked first with 45.1%, Yahoo second with 28.1% and Microsoft was third with 11.9% according to data from comScore.

In September, Lycos had more than 25 million unique visitors; the company says it generates 125 million search queries per month. Lycos says they are switching because Ask.com has better search technology.

Tags: Ask.com, Google, Lycos, MSN, organic search, paid search, search engines

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