Posts Tagged ‘Ask’

Recent comments from the CEO of Ask.com’s parent company suggest that the faltering search engine could be bought by one of its larger competitors.

Ask.com runs a distant fourth place to Google, Yahoo, and Bing in the search engine market, and does not look to be on the verge of any breakout gains. Barry Diller, CEO of Ask’s parent company IAC, recently told Reuters that “[w]e’ve been asked a lot whether we’re open to consolidating transactions in the area of search. The answer is yes, [a]nd it is unlikely that we would be the consolidator.”

Search engine optimization (SEO) professionals could be left with fewer bases to cover in their efforts to improve internet visibility for client companies if any merger or sale occurs. Yahoo’s recent partial merger with Microsoft is further example of simplifying developments in the world of online search.

However, there are still barriers to the sale of Ask.com. Arnold Zafra, writing at Search Engine Journal, points out that Microsoft and Yahoo are unlikely to want to add a third partner so soon after their partial merger, and that Google has no real use for Ask.com’s capabilities.

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• Brafton

One sector of the online economy that has been quietly growing for some months now is that of online coupons. As with most print advertising, the traditional coupon is in decline, so advertisers have moved to the web to distribute enticing offers of discounts.

The recent launch by search engine Ask.com of Ask Deals, a massive coupon clearinghouse, means that companies doing business through the new site utilize search engine optimization (SEO) to boost the online profile of their discount offers. Ask Deals will also work via Facebook and Twitter to offer online coupons to interested customers.

Experts say that search engine optimization (SEO) could prove pivotal in driving traffic to a company’s internet coupons. Large conglomerations of coupons like Ask Deals will, necessarily, have to be easily searchable, and the volume of coupons on the site will lend itself to intelligent efforts at SEO.

As search engines merge more and more deeply with online commerce, search engine optimization (SEO) will become a more and more critical function to help businesses develop and maintain a customer base.