(Update August 1 2005) Ask Jeeves will launch its new pay-per-click text ad service today. Go to Ask Jeeves Sponsored Listings.. The page has no content at the moment of writing, but should be ready as soon as the Americans start their working day.

(July 29 2005) The huge economic success of Google is based on the fact that the company managed to develop a new source of revenue replacing the failed banner ads of the dot com crash.

Inspired by GoTo/Overture Google developed its popular AdWords ad system, which generates text ads of relevance to the content of search queries.

At the moment there are two major players in this field, the above mentioned Google and Overture (now under the Yahoo! brand).

However, Microsoft is preparing its own system, and now Online Media Daily reports that Ask Jeeves is developing its own sponsored listings.

According to the site the price of text ads will be determined by auctions or keyword bidding, but with some measure of relevance, such as click-through rates, factored in. This is very much like Google’s present system. The minimum bid will apparently be 5 US cents.

Ask Jeeves currently display Google text ads on its sites.

See also ClickZ: Ask Jeeves Bows New Sponsored Listings