IAC, the parent of Ask.com, the Daily Beast and Citysearch, today announced it has amended and extended its distribution agreement with Google through March 31, 2016. The deal, which involves the distribution of AdWords ads and other search-related services to IAC sites, was originally scheduled to expire at the end of 2012.

Though IAC didn’t get into specific details about what terms changed, the company says the new agreement is “comparable” to the previous agreement, when taken as a whole. Back in November, Ask.com gave up web search to concentrate on Q&A search, and was said to be working with a partner to provide search results. The renewal of the Google agreement seems to hint at Google being the one to provide that service, but no one is specifically saying that. It’s unclear whether Bing was actively working to win IAC as a partner.

IAC says its search business has grown from $50 million in operating income before amortization in 2006 to $125 million in 2010.

Related Topics: Ask: Sponsored Listings | Ask: Web Search | Channel: SEM | Google: AdWords

About The Author: Pamela Parker is a contributing editor for Search Engine Land and Executive Features Editor at Marketing Land. She’s a well-respected authority on digital marketing, having reported and written on the subject since 1998, including a stint as managing editor of ClickZ. She’s also worked to help monetize independent publishers’ sites at Federated Media Publishing. She blogs about media and marketing at The River and about cooking, gardening and parenthood at Free Range. She can be found on Twitter as @pamelaparker. See more articles by Pamela Parker

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