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November 19, 2004

MSN Search Launch - Overture to run PPC till 2006

Posted by Adam Viener

Microsoft quietly launched their new search engine at beta.search.msn.com.

There had been some speculation that MSN would roll out their own PPC management utility to go head to head with Google Adwords and Overture when their existing contract with overture expired in June of 2005. However, the companies have announced that they have extended their agreement for another year until June of 2006. I guess Microsoft wants to focus on perfecting their organic search engine and spider technology before building a new platform to own 100% of their PPC traffic.

A quick search on their beta site for web hosting, indicates that Microsoft may be planning a hybrid strategy of hosting their own sponsored ads along side of Overture’s. The top two links in the top box and bottom box appear to be run from ads.msn.com while their 3rd link in these boxes and all the ads on the right hand side appear to be driven by overture.