Ask Jeeves Ditches Banners From UK Website

Ask Jeeves, the UK’s third largest search engine, has announced plans to remove all banner advertising from its website in an attempt to improve user loyalty and satisfaction.

Until recently banners were the most widely used advertising format on the Ask Jeeves website. However, the search engine claims they are turning users away and plans to phase them out by the end of the year.

Last year the UK search engine defended its decision to host banner advertising even after its American arm decided to drop that part of its business. However, a redesign in the summer saw it drop untargeted banners and ban pop-up campaigns (see Ask Jeeves Drops Banners For Sponsored Searches).

This latest move comes just weeks after MSN became the first major online media owner to react to consumer demands by bringing an end to selling pop-up advertising on its network of websites. It also reflects the growth of search targeted marketing as a source of revenue (see MSN Bans Pop-Up Advertising Across Entire Network).

Commenting on the move, Chris Babayode, vice president of sales and business development at Ask Jeeves, said: “The decision to remove banners on ask.co.uk has been made to increase consumer search visits to the site and to focus on our other advertising products to help our advertisers successfully influence our users behaviour, wherever they may be in their purchase cycle.”

He added: “Search marketing continues to be a powerful way for advertisers to communicate with their audience. We will continue to help customers to optimise their campaigns and ensure their messages are relevant to users, giving them highly qualified traffic, good returns and giving our users relevant advertising results.”

Ask Jeeves will honour all existing banner contracts and will gradually shift its business model towards its core offerings of branding and performance-based advertising products including branded response, answerlinks and partnership deals.

Recent research from the Interactive Advertising Bureau shows that banners remain the most popular online advertising format, closely followed by paid-for-search listings, which now account for 36% of the total market (see MSN Bans Pop-Up Advertising Across Entire Network).

Ask Jeeves: 020 7400 2222 www.askjeeves.co.uk

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