Why? Ask said they have moved to a new system named PureLeads. What is Pureleads? The FAQ explains:

Pureleads is our new proprietary technology that blends advanced click purification methods and automated campaign traffic management. The Pureleads system protects your campaign from unpredictable delivery spikes, automated click traffic and suspect traffic sources. The result is a powerful technology that improves campaign ROI, overall click to conversion metrics and reduces the time required to manage your campaign.

So why doesn’t it send referrer data? The FAQ continues to explain:

With PureLeads, all clicks from our network are first sent to “aslads.ask.com” for evaluation (multiple traffic quality tests). As a result of our servers intercepting the clicks your web server logs now will register “aslads.ask.com” as the source of all ASL clicks.

Ask plays up how PureLeads improves traffic quality but did they forget that advertisers want transparency? Without knowing where the lead came from and being able to verify that in your log files, should advertisers trust you enough to spend money with you?

If this happened with Google, Yahoo or Bing, trust me, there would be a huge backlash.

Here’s the listing:

For those who can’t view images, I’m pointing at the fifth listing, which says:

gbjann.com Get an auto loan that’s right for you. Compare auto loan rates of top lenders. … Loan type : Sort by : State : City : New auto, 48 mo. New auto, 60 mo. … gbjann.com/anthem/history.htm

How on earth has Google decided that this page should be among the most relevant for a search on “us national anthem” out of 5 million possible matches? Let’s do some digging.

It appears according to the Internet Archive that until last year, this WAS a page that was about America’s national anthem. It shows a copy of the page from as far back as October 2000 on that topic:

And, as late as July 2008, the page still seems to have looked the same way.

So how do we get from anthems to auto loans? Actually, it’s far more than auto loans that the link leads to. As some point, the page was redirected to a system to basically serve out ads randomly.

Let’s look at the URL that Google lists for the page:

http://gbjann.com/anthem/history.htm

Behind the scenes, requests for that page get a 302 temporary redirect to another page. For the non-technical folks, it’s like your browser is given a new phone number to call, and you’re told this forwarding number is only a “temporary” change. That means Google continues to assume that the “old” page will be back, and all the link data help it to rank for this search term continues to be believed.

Here’s where you get redirected:

http://typhon.tybit.com?name=gbjann.com

When Google followed that redirection, this is the page it saw:

Nice — a page of auto loan listings in response to a search on Google for information about the US national anthem. Oh say can you see the irrelevant results?

Those listings on the tyBit search engine that appears, by the way, are identical to the top results you’ll find on Google for the same search. So tyBit appears to be using Google’s results. Or possibily, it’s getting the results from Ask (I’ll get to that connection in a bit), which in turn may be getting them from Google.

So where’s the money being made? See those auto listings? None of them are paid results. Those ads off to the side? Those are all house ads. No one’s earning much off that page. But then again, a human visitor doesn’t see this page when they click from Google.

Instead, when the page loads, there’s JavaScript that does yet another redirection, which sends you directly to some advertiser’s web site, such as this one:

Different ads load each time you click from the listing. I got directed to the Automobile Association Of America once. Another time, I got information about South Carolina lawyers.

Where are these advertisers coming from? We get a clue as we watch the URL change in the browser address bar:

http://askads.ask.com/search?…

Yes, that’s Ask.com that’s behind this. So piecing things together:

• Someone had a page that appears to have ranked well on Google for “us national anthem” for some time
• Somehow, a partnership was struck for tyBit to take over traffic for that page
• In turn, tyBit sends the traffic over to Ask
• Ask is then sending visitors who originally looked for information on “us national anthem” to other pages that have nothing to do with the original search topic
• And Google’s results look dumb — why haven’t they spotted this?

FYI, Ask.com Plays The Google AdWords Arbitrage Game has some background on past irrelevant results that have shown on Google via Ask.com before. Last time, Ask said it was an isolated incident due to a problem with a third-party SEM agency. This time, Ask will probably say the fault is due to a third-party affiliate.

Oh, and that listing on Google? It’ll go poof in the very near future.

Postscript: Ask.com sent me this statement:

On further research, it appears that a third party, acting without our knowledge or consent, was redirecting algorithmic search clicks towards advertisers sourced from multiple ad networks, including ASL. The quality and accuracy of our ad network is something we take seriously. We do have a large number of publisher relationships, and our team is constantly monitoring the quality of the ad inventory.  When we see issues of concern, we correct them quickly.  As you predicted, we identified the source and it was permanently removed from our network over the holiday weekend. In addition, we credited the advertiser accounts that received delivery from this traffic source.

http://localpages.com/results-yb.php?bcat=lending&fd=yb&place=Los+Angeles%2C+Ca

One of many searches where you can find five sponsored results at the top of the Ask.com results is for mp3 players.

Here is the result in IE for PCs:

But when you search in Safari or Firefox, you only get three ads at the top:

This is a huge shame. It was one of my biggest complaints back in 2004 with my article named The Little Engine That Could. I blasted Ask.com’s representative, where I said back then that by placing so many ads above your organic results, it says that you feel the ads are more relevant than their own search results. It is a shame to see Ask.com moving back in this direction.

The details can be found at AskSettlement.com, which contains a PDF of the settlement notice, the online claim form, a method to contact someone, and frequently asked questions.

There is a fund of $820,000. Of that, $258,333 will go to the lawyers and the rest will be given to those who qualify for the settlement. No, you won’t be getting cash, but you will be getting advertising credits to spend more money with Ask Sponsored Listings.

On March 13, 2008 at 1:00pm, the court will consider whether the settlement is fair. You must submit your claim by February 2, 2008. If you do not opt out, you will be included in the class action lawsuit.

Yahoo also gave out settlements for click fraud, as did Google.

In the second quarter, Google earned $997 million from ads on “partner sites.” Barry Diller of IACI said that his Ask.com accounted for 10% of Google’s partner site revenue. That means Ask.com should have brought in almost $100 million of that for Google.

Google’s own properties earned them $1.43 billion. That is a small fraction of the revenue Google earned from their ads that quarter. Now, if Google shares 80 to 85% of that revenue with Ask.com, that is not much overall profit from that partnership.

Youssef Squali, an analyst at Jefferies, said “If it’s [Ask.com's] more than 1% [of Google's total ad revenue] I would be shocked.”

Postscript From Danny: I’d expect Google to strongly work to keep the partnership with Ask, if only to prevent Yahoo and Microsoft from picking up the recognition of powering paid listings on an important site like that. Google may be big, but winning paid search syndication partners is still important and a competitive space.

This is reportedly the first time in five years that two of the top five search engines have joined together to offer search engine ads to advertisers. This will enable those using Microsoft’s adManager to easily advertise on Live.com and MSN as well as on Ask.com.

“We are very excited about the integration of Ask Sponsored Listings, as this provides more options for our small businesses to market their companies and attract new customers,” said Baris Cetinok, director of product management and marketing for Microsoft Office Live. “Adding Ask Sponsored Listings to our adManager service gets us one step closer to our goal of providing small businesses with an all-inclusive search engine marketing service.”

James Speer, general manager of search marketing at IAC Advertising Solutions, said, “The Ask Sponsored Listings advertising network reaches over 59 million monthly unique users. The integration of Ask Sponsored Listings with Microsoft Office Live makes it easy for marketers to extend their pay-per-click ad campaigns to our publisher network.”

More details over here.

The Ask contextual product will initially launch within IAC’s own network of sites including Match.com, Ticketmaster, Evite and Citysearch and will then expand to trusted third party publishers. Individual publishers will most likely have to wait until next quarter to gain access to this contextual product.

Current Ask Sponsored Listings advertisers will be automatically opted into the contextual network, but will have the option of opting out before the product launches. In addition, advertisers will be able to preview the features and controls they have, prior to the launch date. The advertiser controls will be separated; there will be unique bid prices for contextual ads as well as unique, separate reporting tools, and referrer blocking.

The publishers will have two unique features that are not currently available in the Google AdSense and Yahoo Publisher Network. Publishers will be able to set “page yield thresholds” and set “relevancy thresholds.” There will be levers to allow publisher to determine if they want higher paying ads or if they want more relevant ads with these levers. In addition, the ads will be unique from that of Google and Yahoo ads. Ask told me that they will allow “very customized” interfaces for the contextual ads; such as customized backgrounds and graphics.

Let me just clarify one more time that they will first launch with IAC’s own network and trusted publishers, then possibly, in the next quarter, allow other third party publishers sign up to the contextual program.

Here is the full release:

IAC Advertising Solutions Announces Contextual Advertising Product

Contextual advertising offering creates new revenue options for publishers, expands distribution options for Ask Sponsored Listings advertisers

OAKLAND, Calif. – April 25, 2007 – IAC Advertising Solutions (IACAS), a wholly-owned business of IAC (Nasdaq; IACI), today announced a contextual advertising product that enables publishers to generate revenue via contextually-relevant ad units on their content pages. The contextual product is integrated into the Ask Sponsored Listings (ASL) platform and allows ASL advertisers to seamlessly extend their pay per click advertising campaigns to content pages. Reaching over 34 million unique users each month the ASL content advertising network will launch with sites from IAC’s portfolio of brands including Match.com, Ticketmaster, Evite and Citysearch.

“IAC Advertising Solutions already operates the 3rd largest search advertising network1. We’ve achieved this scale by providing innovative and flexible monetization solutions to more than 90 publishers. We are excited about this new offering and the expanded set of publishers that we’ll be able to serve through a content advertising network.” said James Speer, GM Search Marketing at IAC Advertising Solutions.

IACAS continues to make significant investments in people and technology to better support a growing network of publishers. “We have consistently heard that publishers want more diversity in their revenue streams and transparency into the true value of their inventory. We fully expect that our new contextual product will satisfy the needs of these content owners” said Speer.

The value of contextual lies in its ability to deliver relevant high yield advertisements deep within the content channels of web properties. As a result publishers are free to focus resources on other revenue streams including integrated brand sponsorships. The ASL contextual product provides superior sell through today for publishers of technology, telecommunications, travel, automotive, real estate and finance content.

Contextual Advertising Features and Benefits

Increased Page Yield Higher revenues due to an established and growing advertiser base Improved relevance and higher yields than ROS/RON CPM ads Customizable yield thresholds to support page yield management Self-serve revenue reporting portal Revenue reporting across multiple channels and products

Enhanced Editorial Control Customization of ad look and feel (background color, font, layout, graphics) Customizable relevancy settings to meet user experience goals Editorial control of advertisers (competitive advertiser blocking) Editorial categorization of site pages is supported

Improved Integration Capabilities Contextual ad tags can be served via existing publisher ad servers (i.e. DFP, AdManager) Standardized ad tags promote quick and easy implementations with little or no maintenance

The Ask Sponsored Listings contextual product will be available during the week of May 21st. For more information publishers can send email to bizdev@ask.com

1 Source: comScore and internal data, January 2007

About Ask Sponsored Listings Ask Sponsored Listings, introduced in the Fall of 2005, is an automated open-auction system allowing marketers to purchase, manage and optimize campaigns on Ask.com and its publisher network. The ASL search advertising network is now the 3rd largest reaching 61.4 million monthly unique users. More than 30,000 advertisers use the system to bid on more than 25 million keywords. Additional information about ASL is available at http://sponsoredlistings.ask.com

IAC Advertising Solutions is also demonstrating its commitment to stemming click fraud as a member of the IAB Task Force on the issue.

About IAC Advertising Solutions One the world’s largest online advertising solutions and sales groups, IAC Advertising Solutions offers complete solutions for a variety of communication needs and a comprehensive range of advertising products, including search, media, and direct marketing. Search solutions include Ask Sponsored Listings, an automated open-auction system allowing marketers to purchase, manage and optimize campaigns on Ask.com and its advertising syndication network. Media solutions include online templated ad units and integrated sponsorships, as well as offline media capabilities on IAC’s network of leading online brands, including Ticketmaster Citysearch, Evite, Match.com, iWon, Excite, and Expedia. Direct Marketing solutions include email, lead generation, co-registration, sweepstakes and promotions. IAC Advertising Solutions is a division of IAC Search & Media, a wholly-owned business of IAC (NASDAQ: IACI). IAC Advertising Solutions can be contacted at www.iacadvertising.com or 212-404-1000.

Postscript: Marchex released a press release that shows they are one of the few early contextual ad partners in this program.

Marchex, Inc. (NASDAQ: MCHX, MCHXP), in conjunction with its IndustryBrains subsidiary, today announced that it has signed contextual advertising agreements with four online publishers, including Computer Shopper, Engineering.com, Wall Street Reporter, and SitePoint. Under the agreements, Marchex will provide its contextual advertising solutions to selected areas of the publishers’ Web sites, or to channels associated with the sites, such as targeted newsletters and blogs.

Postscript #2: The Ask.com Blog just covered this explaining that this product different from the competitors because of three reasons:

* It gives publishers more control over yield and relevancy
* It gives publishers more creative ad unit opportunities
* It allows both advertisers and publishers more control over where and what ads are displayed

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