Google is not the only search engine with a special logo. Yahoo, Bing and Ask.com all have logos.

I have some additional logos from others in the industry at the Search Engine Roundtable. Also, if you want to see the St. Patrick’s Day logos from the past 6 years or so, you can see them at 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005 and 2004 archives.

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.

Much of the search growth came from toolbar searches, which was up by 35% in terms of revenue. Search also was up 5% in terms of income, but IAC decided to write off a $1 billion “impairment charge” on Ask.com. The exact amount was $1,020.6 million loss on the search business, which includes Ask.com.

Here are some more details from Reuters on the impairment charge and some notes from the IAC release:

Search consists of our search properties such as Ask.com, Fun Web Products, and Dictionary.com, our distribution business, which includes distributed search, sponsored listings and toolbars, and Citysearch.

Search revenue reflects an increase in proprietary queries and the continued growth in distributed toolbar partners and queries, partially offset by a decline in revenue per query. Ask.com’s site enhancements have improved monetization, leading to increased revenue per query, but have resulted in fewer queries per visit as users find their desired results more quickly. Citysearch’s revenue declined, primarily reflecting lower display revenue due to lower pricing and a planned reduction in inventory availability.

Operating Income Before Amortization was favorably impacted by higher revenue and lower marketing costs, partially offset by higher traffic acquisition costs as a percentage of revenue versus the year ago period. Operating loss in the current year was negatively impacted by impairment charges totaling $1.045 billion related to the goodwill and intangible assets of IAC Search & Media. These charges were identified in our annual impairment assessment and are due to lower growth projections for revenue and profits for IAC Search & Media in future years that reflect the Company’s consideration of industry growth rates, competitive dynamics and IAC Search & Media’s current operating strategies and the impact of these factors on the fair value of IAC Search & Media and its goodwill and intangible assets.

Jared Cluff, Ask’s senior VP of marketing, says the deal produced some measurable results in 2009:

“We saw double-digit increases in usage among NASCAR fans. With the fan cards that our Ask Ambassadors passed out at the track, we saw a 27 percent conversion rate to the site, so fans were coming back from the track and going to the site. That’s a remarkable stat.”

The Sporting News says Ask spent about $15 million on its NASCAR-related sponsorships last year. The deal was announced last January, with Ask saying the agreement would help it compete against Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft. But a year later, Ask remains a distant fourth in market share according to both Hitwise and comScore, and fifth according to Nielsen.

UTalkMarketing.com reported “Gieves and Hawkes together with Ben Sherman have supplied virtual outfits that allow users to transform butler Jeeves from his usual smart two-piece suit.” The Flash dressup wizard was created by Framestore and Moonshine and offers 100,000 different outfit combinations.

Here is a video of me dressing up Jeeves:

Google’s MLK Logo:

Yahoo’s Flash MLK logo:

Bing’s MLK Theme:

Ask.com’s MLK Theme:

DogPile:

Search Engine Roundtable:

Armstrong said this at Citi’s annual entertainment, media and telecommunications conference today. This was prompted by a question about possibly using Microsoft Bing as a search partner at the end of this year, when the Google deal expires. Armstrong added that a new search deal, under the new independent AOL, will be financially good for them. He specifically said they “may trade search dollars for more display dollars.”

Armstrong is a former Google executive, who was named the CEO of AOL back six months ago.

Let’s start with Google’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” count down to New Years. Remember when you hit the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button on Google.com, it would show you how many minutes to 2010? Well, when 2010 hits, it then shows you a fireworks display. Here is a video I made of it.

Now for the logos, which is basically a repost of my listing from the Search Engine Roundtable:

Google:

Yahoo (Animated):

Bing:

AOL:

Ask.com:

DogPile:

Baidu:

Clicker:

Sogou:

Cre8asite Forums:

Search Engine Roundtable:

Happy New Years All!

Here are the logos:

Diller, the CEO of IAC — Ask.com’s parent company — was clarifying comments made in October, when he said he’s “open to consolidating transactions in the area of search,” and that it’s “unlikely that we would be the consolidator.” Today, he talked about turning away others who wanted to buy Ask.com:

“The people who called us were on exploration missions, on a stand-alone buy as an asset. That is different than having conversations with other people in the vineyard, in the area of search…. I think further consolidation in search is necessary given Google’s dominance.”

But with search possibly soon to be a two-horse race between Google and Bing/Yahoo, Diller doesn’t seem to have many consolidations options left. He said he’s had “idle chat” with AOL about partnering on search and local services, but has no interest in acquiring AOL.