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Currently a search on Raccoon at Google.com brings back an AdWords ad from Ask.com. The ad description says, "Use the New Ask.com to find it. Save time. Search better." If you click on the title, which reads, "Raccoon" it takes you to a Smart Answer result at Ask.com for Raccoon. Of course, that Smart Answer rocks.
I am seriously impressed by this long tailed approach to marketing Ask.com. I have always wondered why search engines didn't use this approach more. Heck, bid on a ton of obscure, low priced keywords, to send traffic towards your own engine. Shopping search engines do it all the time. Travel also, heck most niche vertical engines do this. Why not the main search engines?
I am happy Ask.com is taking this approach.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Comments:
Eugen
10/18/2006 04:33 pm
This tells me only one thing: Ask.com is desperate! My suggestion to them would be: "Improve the quality of your network!!! It's the only key to success"
SunnyBizDev
10/18/2006 04:41 pm
And they are probably not paying much either. Overture Bid tool shows CPC rates for the term "raccoon" in the $.10 - $.12 range. There were 24k searches for that term last month.
Andrew Goodman
10/19/2006 12:34 am
The fact that they aren't paying much indicates that Ask is doing essentially what similar companies (but many of them much smaller) have been doing: engaging in arbitrage! Doing this long tail keyword-crazy stuff is definitely harder now with Quality Scores, but if they're tailoring it to smart answers, they may dodge that bullet.
Fione - eOneNet
10/19/2006 07:12 am
Well at least they are spending their money more wisely, by riding on the visitors on other more popular search engines. Looks like they're only buying the correct spelling of the keywords, and not on the other misspellings like:- - racoon (6545 searches in inventory.overture.com last month) - raccon (514 searches)
Christian
10/19/2006 09:32 pm
I think this is a safe & cost efficient way for Ask to advertise. I think the comparison from seeing Google's SERP, clicking on Ask's ad, and seeing their SERP might convert some users into using Ask more often. Regardless of any sort of measurable results from this 'marketing campaign,' I think it's a rather clever approach.