Ask.com For Sale?

Posted on October 28, 2009

According to several reports Ask.com maybe for sale.

Barry Diller said today:

“We’ve been asked a lot whether we’re open to consolidating transactions in the area of search. The answer is yes, And, it is unlikely that we would be the consolidator.”

Mr. Diller said the competitive environment in search is “fierce” and he said the future of Ask.com is “speculative.”

In reporting its earnings, IAC’s media and advertising business declined 11% in the 3rd quarter.

7 thoughts on “Ask.com For Sale?”

  1. Who would buy it?

    What price would IAC hope to achieve?

    Those are the two questions in my mind.

    Bing / MS are most likely going to be interested in it to continue there growth but Im not sure . . .

    any other thoughts?

  2. If you go to the Ask.com “brands” page, you see Dictionary.com listed. That’s actually a bit more of a distinctive service than Ask.com is for search. Compete.com reports between 1 and 3 million unique visitors per month for Dictionary so pretty considerable value attached.

  3. “Ask.com For Sale?”

    if true (with or without its SE) the domain should surely set the new DomainsPriceWorldRecord.com … 🙂

    how much you think will be its selling price?

    my guess is $30 million

    .

  4. It would be monumentally stupid if they ever sell just the domain Ask.com. It’s worth less than 1% of the entire entity.

    Does anyone know what market share Ask.com gets now for search? It used to be in the high single digits when I followed it a couple of years ago.

    My guess is it’s still worth around $1B these days.

  5. Recall reading a few years back that each 1% of the US search market is worth 1 billion USD.

    Given this; can’t imagine Barry’d sell just the domain and keep the SE…

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