I reported at SEW yesterday that Ask.com To Power Lycos Search & Search Ads. In short, Ask.com took the Lycos deal from Microsoft, to power Lycos's search and ppc engine.
Ask.com, a wholly-owned business of IAC/InterActiveCorp (NASDAQ: IACI) and LYCOS, Inc.(www.lycos.com), a leading web portal, today announced a multi-year agreement whereby Ask.com will be the search and sponsored listings provider for the LYCOS Network, including LYCOS.com, Hotbot.com, Tripod.com and Angelfire.com. Under the terms of the agreement, Ask.com will provide branded algorithmic search, including Web Search, Image Search, and Zoom Related Search, as well as the Ask Sponsored Listings advertising product across the LYCOS Network. LYCOS is the fifth most popular portal in the U.S., consistently ranked as a top 20 U.S. Web property, with more than 6 million monthly unique visitors using LYCOS Network Search. In addition, LYCOS will transition its current sponsored listings advertisers currently using its pay-per-click platform, InSite AdBuyer, to Ask Sponsored Listings, and will promote the Ask.com PPC product to advertisers throughout the LYCOS Network.
Now, some folks such as Andrew Goodman, who are heavy in the PPC arena, are saying We don't have a huge amount of time to think about Ask and Lycos these days.
I have not seen much forum discussion on this topic yet. There is a thread at WebmasterWorld that doesn't add much, there is more questions then excitement about this deal.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Cre8asite Forums.
