Comments on: Ask – MSN Search killer? http://www.tamingthebeast.net/blog/web-marketing/search-engines-ask-1207.htm Ecommerce, web marketing and development news and research by Michael Bloch of Taming the Beast.net Mon, 29 Dec 2008 22:24:34 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Michael Bloch http://www.tamingthebeast.net/blog/web-marketing/search-engines-ask-1207.htm/comment-page-1#comment-48741 Michael Bloch Thu, 20 Dec 2007 07:50:46 +0000 http://www.tamingthebeast.net/blog/web-marketing/search-engines-ask-1207.htm#comment-48741 AJ, I'd be really interested to hear about what you discover; thanks! I went looking for some demographic information briefly, but didn't find much except for this: http://www.quantcast.com/ask.com http://www.quantcast.com/ask.com/demographics AJ, I’d be really interested to hear about what you discover; thanks! I went looking for some demographic information briefly, but didn’t find much except for this:

http://www.quantcast.com/ask.com
http://www.quantcast.com/ask.com/demographics

]]> By: AJ http://www.tamingthebeast.net/blog/web-marketing/search-engines-ask-1207.htm/comment-page-1#comment-48739 AJ Thu, 20 Dec 2007 03:18:13 +0000 http://www.tamingthebeast.net/blog/web-marketing/search-engines-ask-1207.htm#comment-48739 Hi Michael, You bring up a good point. Yes, people are finding my site via the same search terms on Ask.com as they are on the other major search engines. And it is a mixture of "money" terms and more obscure, long-tail terms. However, whether they are highly competitive "money" terms or not, they are all very relevant to the site. I'm only interested in providing to people what they are looking for. Perhaps the reason why my Ask.com traffic doesn't convert into sales as well as my traffic from the other engines is like you mentioned about social bookmarking: the people who are searching on Ask for the terms I am optimizing for aren't of a "buying" demographic. I'll keep my eye on this trend and see if there is anything I can do in terms of SEO to reverse it. I'd be happy to report my findings here... Thank you for your excellent insight and very informative blog. I'm a big fan! Hi Michael,

You bring up a good point. Yes, people are finding my site via the same search terms on Ask.com as they are on the other major search engines. And it is a mixture of “money” terms and more obscure, long-tail terms. However, whether they are highly competitive “money” terms or not, they are all very relevant to the site. I’m only interested in providing to people what they are looking for.

Perhaps the reason why my Ask.com traffic doesn’t convert into sales as well as my traffic from the other engines is like you mentioned about social bookmarking: the people who are searching on Ask for the terms I am optimizing for aren’t of a “buying” demographic. I’ll keep my eye on this trend and see if there is anything I can do in terms of SEO to reverse it. I’d be happy to report my findings here…

Thank you for your excellent insight and very informative blog. I’m a big fan!

]]> By: Michael Bloch http://www.tamingthebeast.net/blog/web-marketing/search-engines-ask-1207.htm/comment-page-1#comment-48724 Michael Bloch Tue, 18 Dec 2007 09:54:11 +0000 http://www.tamingthebeast.net/blog/web-marketing/search-engines-ask-1207.htm#comment-48724 Hi AJ, thanks for stopping by. Much like with social bookmarking services, certain types of people tend to gravitate towards particular engines. Are you finding that people coming to your site from Ask are arriving via the same terms from other engines and are they "money" terms rather than obscure phrases with little relevance to the goals of your site? Hi AJ, thanks for stopping by. Much like with social bookmarking services, certain types of people tend to gravitate towards particular engines. Are you finding that people coming to your site from Ask are arriving via the same terms from other engines and are they “money” terms rather than obscure phrases with little relevance to the goals of your site?

]]> By: AJ http://www.tamingthebeast.net/blog/web-marketing/search-engines-ask-1207.htm/comment-page-1#comment-48723 AJ Tue, 18 Dec 2007 09:27:30 +0000 http://www.tamingthebeast.net/blog/web-marketing/search-engines-ask-1207.htm#comment-48723 Thank you for this interesting article. I have been doing a bit of optimizing for the Ask search engine over the past few months. By checking my logs, I have found that though my traffic through Ask.com has indeed increased considerably, that same traffic does not seem to convert into sales. It's odd. When I am able to increase my traffic flow to the other search engines, my sales also increase. But for some strange reason, this does not occur with Ask. Any ideas? Thank you for this interesting article. I have been doing a bit of optimizing for the Ask search engine over the past few months. By checking my logs, I have found that though my traffic through Ask.com has indeed increased considerably, that same traffic does not seem to convert into sales.

It’s odd. When I am able to increase my traffic flow to the other search engines, my sales also increase. But for some strange reason, this does not occur with Ask. Any ideas?

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