April 1st, 2004

The move marks the latest stage in a rapidly maturing online ad market and follows the decision by many large sites, including MSN and Ask Jeeves, to ban pop-ups.

Ask Jeeves, the UK's third-largest search engine, is removing all banner ads, saying they put people off using its site.

Until recently banners were the most widely used ad product on the site. Now, although existing deals with advertisers will be honoured, all banners should have disappeared by the end of the year.

It's also further evidence of the growing importance of search engine marketing within the advertising mix.

Chris Babayode, VP of sales and business development for Ask Jeeves UK, said he expects the UK site to follow the experience of its US parent, which stopped taking banner ads in January last year.

'Banner ads dissuaded people from visiting,' said Babayode. 'More people will come to our site to search and we'll increase the frequency of searches if we take off banner ads, and our other ad products will do better.'

These include the Branded Response display ads and text-based Answer Links, both of which appear within the search results.

Ask Jeeves has refused to discuss the revenue implications of the loss of banners. However, Babayode said it should be possible to accommodate most of its current advertisers within the other types of ads it sells.

'A lot of people take a mix of ad types with us. We'll be able to realign their needs,' he said.

Ask Jeeves reaches almost 18% of the UK's Internet audience, according to Nielsen//NetRatings, and within the search market trails only Google and MSN in the size of its user base.

Source: New Media Age

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