Google is certainly not the only search engine that advertises its own PPC platform (Adwords) on its own PPC sponsored links. Today on Live.com, you can also see Microsoft advertises its own PPC platform (Adcenter) on its own PPC sponsored links.
Unfortunately, a search on keyword ‘adcenter’, Live search seems to think the user has made a typo and offers an alternative on keyword ‘adventer’.
I believe Microsoft has recently realized the importance of increasing the base of new Adcenter advertisers. As a month ago an ad on Live.com could be seen on Live Search itself on keyword ‘search’.
However today on the same keyword, you can only see an ad for Adcenter.
Adcenter is believed to be a late comer to PPC, as Live.com’s former version MSN.com used to lease the prominent PPC ad spots to Yahoo!’s Overture until July 2006. Besides its mimicking of many existing features in Adwords, Adcenter’s interface still has plenty rooms to improve regarding usability. However, Adcenter currently offers a targeting feature, demographics on genders and age groups, that does not even exist on the two giants Google Adwords or Yahoo! Search Marketing. It is believed that Adcenter’s Demographics targeting is based on the user demographics of Microsoft’s Hotmail users.
Another issue is that a direct visit via your Internet browser to www.adcenter.com will take you to www.advertising.com, in which you will obviously not be able to sign up as a new Adcenter advertiser. Shouldn’t Microsoft pay some good money to buy the proper domain?