Ask Jeeves Search Affiliate Program

Just when I thought Jeeves and Co. couldn't sink any lower, they unveil a new search box affiliate program through Commission Junction:

Through a variety of flash ad search units we have created, a publisher can place the Ask Jeeves search engine directly onto their site. Ask Jeeves pays $0.01 for every completed search result query via a unique, qualified search originating from our creative search units.

This is a sample creative on the right side, over here (cropped a bit to eliminate unnecessary "red space").

Let me get this straight - they'll pay me a penny to send them to their Adwords feed pages? Hmm. No thanks - I can earn more going through the Google Adsense for search program - or even better - I can pay five cents to Google Adwords and send them to my *own* Adsense pages for $X.xx per click keywords.

It's a classic $.0x PPC to $X.xx PPC Feed page strategy masquerading as an affiliate program. Ask is not really trying to be a good search engine, they are only trying to be a successful PPC feed site with a multi-million dollar advertising budget. Yet again, Ask has proven they are "All about the Benjamins".

When is Google going to remove them from their Adsense program? I'd certainly opt out of showing my ads on their network, if I could.

MSN Toolbar Suite

First there was the Google Desktop Search (which works great, by the way), then Yahoo and Ask announced similar products, coming real soon now. Now Microsoft has released a "beta" toolbar suite - following the MS corporate tradition of releasing products still in Beta - unleashed on the unsuspecting masses.

Features include:

• Three search toolbars make searching quicker and easier


• Desktop Search finds things on your computer, fast


• Automatic form fill manages personal information and passwords


• Pop-up Blocker prevents bothersome advertisements


• Highlight helps skim through result pages

My question is, why do I need an extra MS software tool to search my Windows PC? Simple answer - the built-in search just doesn't work well.

I really don't see much reason to use this tool - it pretty much performs the same tasks that other similar products do and as a rule, I don't install Beta products.

Download it at beta.toolbar.msn.com.