ASK Related Search : Adsense killer or compliment?

Posted by Scott on May 16th, 2007 .

What are Quick Links?

Quick Links search is dynamically generated content showing related search terms from content tags, keywords are updated automatically from across a network of advertisers to increase relevancy.

Recently I was approached by Media Jump to test and trial a new advertising method, which in itself is nothing unusual as high traffic website owners are often approached with offers to fill advertising space. Most of the time I don’t take much notice but this one looks good and the initial numbers stack up very well.

MediaJump recently announced plans to roll out a contextual advertising product. MediaJump is a search partner of Ask.com and helps publishers monetise their website through user centric ad products. QuickLinks, which is the name of the MediaJump tool, encourages publishers to select a number of keywords which are tailored to their audience and website content. Users click on the keywords and are directed through to a search results page. Publishers can customise the look and feel of the QuickLinks tool to ensure it integrates seamlessly with their website.Quick Links related search lists related search terms that can be placed on your website either horizontally or vertically, full control is given over width, the amount of results you wish to be shown, colour options and whether to show a search box and ASK branding logo. Javascript code is placed on the page and the resulting ‘related search’ is displayed on your website which is quite natural looking and pleasant to integrate.

The list of related search terms are generated automatically by inputting a keyword or phrase, for example ‘make money online’ could generate a related search list like this:

Make Money Online

Initial thoughts from using related search;

  • Extremely easy to setup using copy/paste javascript code
  • Easy to integrate in existing sites
  • Links open in a new window

Obviously the point of the related links is to give your visitors options/links which then open in a new window sending traffic to Ask.com search engine which displays advertisers sponsored links and organic results, you earn revenue on all clicks on advertiser listings, in this way the products is quite similar to Google search but it’s integration into my website makes its a killer tool that works well and looks good.

Ralated search layout

As you can see in the image above the vertical layout lends itself very well to multiple column layout and is inviting for visitors to click on, the major difference being if someone clicks or uses the search box the results are brought up in a new window, this has a huge influence on the overall figures and results from my initial trial.

An immediate concern is whether it can be run as a compliment to existing income streams, namely Adsense so I fired of an email and was given a favourable response:

In regard to your query regarding the powered search on the same webpage as Google ads. AdSense publishers may display third party advertisements on sites and pages showing Google ads as long as the formatting or colour scheme of these ads is sufficiently different from the layout of the Google ads. In other words, if you choose to place non-Google ads and search boxes on the same site or page as Google ads, it should always be clear to the user that the ads are served by different advertising networks and that the non-Google ads have no association with Google. If the formats are naturally similar, we would ask that you use different colour schemes for the competing ads.

So as expected Google like to make sure their ads are not confused with anyone else’s which is fair enough but it can be run on the same page, fantastic! I could then crack on and implement the code and I have run related search for over a week now and the results have been pretty remarkable.

I cannot go into the specific numbers due to the terms and conditions however my Adsense earnings on a site which usually generates $250 per day are mostly unchanged, ASK related search income has almost matched Adsense and on some days surpassed it also generating around $200 - $300 per day in effect doubling income from the same traffic levels.

On smaller sites such as my Tattoo Fonts mini site the income from related search is far greater than Adsense bringing in $20-$30 per day instead of $5-$10 per day, yet again Adsense has hardly been affected but the increase in overall earnings has been huge.

Over the course of the trial my Adsense income has been maintained, possibly down at the most 10% , I have been making an additional $300+ per day by using quick links. I think the fact that the links open in a new window is the key to this being such a huge success for me and at present I am on target to generate almost an extra $10,000 in income this month on top of all existing income streams.

Having spoke to Media Jump there are a few points I have to make about Quick Links and it’s availability.

  • Each website in the program is checked and must be approved to be family friendly
  • Rollout will be measured and steady so no flood of applicants
  • It will initially made available to high traffic webmasters
  • Payments are made 45 days from the end of each calender month
  • Available to the UK and USA through media Jump

Quick Links will not be open to a flood of applicants with each and every website url being manually approved so you cannot go taking one piece of code and paste it across your network of sites, I must say this has been a revelation for my sites and has worked as an excellent compliment to Adsense and my existing income streams.

We have come to an agreement with the Media Jump, if you generate around 5000 visitors per day or more and are interested in running Quick Links on your website then you can apply and we would refer your details to the global distribution partner, also if you know of any large publishers then you may well be doing them a big favour by letting them know.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 16th, 2007 and is filed under Business News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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23 Comments »

Comment by Maris from Social networking blog
2007-05-16 13:02:09

Interesting way to raise income - I will probably try this after I will reach 5k per day.

Thanks for sharing your ideas!

 
Comment by Jay from Online Opportunity Subscribed to comments via email
2007-05-16 13:54:35

The fact that Adsense income was down very little would seem to indicate Ask.com is appealing to a different audience than Adsense ads. Personally, I’d be more willing to click on “related searches” links than Adsense ads, so this seems like a good way to widen your audience for ads. Thanks for sharing the results!

Jay

 
Comment by Scott from Scott
2007-05-16 13:57:39

I agree with you Jay, this type of ‘related search’ is much more appealing than adsense and may well be a useful tool for those that struggle with converting traffic at present into an income so a refreshing change.

 
Comment by Garry from Photography Basics Subscribed to comments via email
2007-05-16 15:25:15

A good way to find out what other keywords you should be targetting for your site too!

The only think I’d be concerned with, as a potential user of sites which employs this type of ad, is that there will now be up to 3 google adsense ads a google text link ad and now a whole long list of other text type links to contend with.

The actual site content will get lost even more on sites where the owner is more concerned with ads than content.

Great news about your income though, if used well they look like a good addition to adsense.

Comment by Scott from Scott
2007-05-16 15:28:57

Good point! To be honest Garry I could be tempted to remove Adsense on some sites to clean them up and could end up better off and with a nicer looking site.

 
 
Comment by Jacob
2007-05-16 17:29:32

Just thought I’d let you guys know your site layout is seriously broken in IE 6 (Win XP SP2). I don’t know if this is a new development or not since I usually view it in Firefox.

Comment by Al from Al Subscribed to comments via email
2007-05-16 17:51:26

Hi Jacob, I’ve not got IE6 on any of my machines, in which way is it broken? Thanks.

 
Comment by Jacob
2007-05-16 21:27:27

Content cut off on the left side, even if I enlarge the window (seems to have been offset to the left). Comments are floating over a scrollbar (not a huge deal, but distracting). And the plus/minus images on comments are a replaced by a blue box.

I can email you screenshots if you’d like. Also, I’ve found VMWare (or similar) works great for maintaining multiple machine configurations to test on, and VMWare Server is even free.

And BTW, awesome site you guys have. There’s a lot of really great content here.

 
Comment by Bjarke from BitnoCom Subscribed to comments via email
2008-03-26 16:19:30

I have the same problem. (XP and MSIE 7.0)

 
 
2007-05-17 11:45:16

[...] CSS problem that was only effecting readers who used IE7, it came to light thanks to a comment by Jacob (I would of linked to you there Jacob but you didn’t provide a URL): Just thought I’d let [...]

 
2007-05-18 15:48:09

[...] unique called Related Search Ads. Self Made Minds is the first webmaster I have seen report the new ad format. It’s similar to Google’s link unit with a few [...]

 
Comment by Keith
2007-05-21 18:33:37

This looks rather promising. I just wonder how difficult would it be for someone to get accepted for an ASK account?

 
Comment by uVme from uVme Subscribed to comments via email
2007-08-26 21:57:47

Very interested in this new form of advertising, sounds much better than google adsense. Are you still seeing a good return?

 
Comment by Steve Subscribed to comments via email
2007-12-15 16:02:41

It does look like a step in the right direction, and maybe provide either a replacement or complimentary form of advertising running alongside Google/Yahoo.

 
Comment by Bali Web Design from Bali Web Design
2008-01-07 20:16:43

quick links from media jump is really interesting thing, but how can i generate 5k visitors per day?
can i apply it with a very low traffic sites?
plz share how to generate huge traffic to sites.
thanks.

 
Comment by pain ridden Subscribed to comments via email
2008-01-31 20:29:43

quick links seem very impressive for the keywords get updated automatically without having to do it manually. i would love to try that some time in the future

 
2008-02-09 08:24:16

I think it will grow along with Adsense. Concept is quite unique. Let us see if it manages to create some buzz on the web. It’s too early to say anything about it.

 
Comment by Flash Memory from Flash Memory Subscribed to comments via email
2008-02-09 09:40:36

Its good for people looking to get suggested alternatives, I think it will also grow.

 
Comment by Laurence Subscribed to comments via email
2008-02-12 22:56:21

Hmm is this available for sites with fewer than 5,000 hits per day? Looks like it could be a winner. The last few days have been slow for me with Adsense.. I’m thinking of other ways to supplement my (admittedly small traffic) sites’ income.

 
Comment by Stephen Tierney from Cheap DVDs
2008-04-13 09:47:32

Hm, I’ve been trialling this on my site. It obviously doesn’t get as much traffic as SMM but to be honest results so far have been pretty poor, and for some reason I haven’t been able to login to the account for a few days. Dunno whats going on there - maybe I’ve been kicked out already?!?

 
Comment by Javier Subscribed to comments via email
2008-11-27 19:00:43

Hi Scott.

A guy from the fastbox staff contacted me about quick links (and also referring this post) to use their system, so I decided to give it a try.

In just one day it made the double than adsense, so far I’m impressed. The good thing is that you can target your keywords for each post if you like.

The only downside is that I haven’t found a way to properly track the clicks, from which website are they coming from or what keywords have the best CTR. Do you know if there’s anyway to track this?

Javier’s last blog post..Electric Motor Scooter: Efficient and Environmentally-Sound

 
Comment by Danny Emerson from fx trading
2009-02-19 10:08:31

Excellent way to make more money! But why do they accept sites only from USA and UK?

 
Comment by Dale from 2cuk Subscribed to comments via email
2010-02-02 14:16:56

They dont seem to be working mate? shows no results for me….

 
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