• Compete, Wednesday, November 14, 2007 12:45 PM

By now, you must have seen at least one of IAC/InterActiveCorp's commercials for Ask.com, asking "Can your search engine do this?" and then proceeding to show off the virtues of Ask 3D in all its video-playing, image-thumbnailing, related-searching glory.

It would be interesting to see how much IAC has spent on this Ask ad campaign, but according to Compete's October search data, the company is already getting a solid ROI in traffic. Search queries increased 14% from September and while Ask's overall market share of 3.9% is still down from last year's 4.3%, this is the second straight month of gains. And as Jeremy Crane notes, Ask could well usurp that number next month if the growth trend continues.

As usual Google is still far ahead of the rest of the pack, with a 68% market share (and nearly 50% growth year-over-year), while MSN Live Search showed strong year-over-year growth to retain 9.2% of the market for October. But Yahoo is the only engine whose traffic and volume slipped, with market share down to about 18%, a 2% dip from September -- but nearly a 30% drop from this time last year.

Read the whole story at Compete »