Every time someone clicks on those listings on Ask Jeeves' Web sites, Google pays Ask Jeeves.
Venture Frogs was a backer of the search engine Ask Jeeves, which went public in July.
Ask Jeeves realized that pop-up ads and banner ads weren't working, so it got rid of them late last year.
Ask Jeeves began as a search engine to answer plain English questions, with its staff diligently anticipating what would be asked.
Jeeves retired in 2006, and so did the original Ask Jeeves name.
FORBES: Happy B-day, Jeeves: As Ask.com Turns 15, A Refocus on Q&A
Ask Jeeves says that puts the company third behind Google and Inktomi.
After all, Google had buried early competitors such as AltaVista and Ask Jeeves solely with the accuracy and usefulness of its search results.
Dozens of smaller dot.coms, from Ask Jeeves to Respond.com, are also selling private-label versions of their technologies to big companies, largely to move away from over-dependence on consumer revenues.
"Searches for World Trade Center at places such as MSN Search, Ask Jeeves and Yahoo, for example, brought back no listings relevant to the current catastrophe, " said Danny Sullivan, editor of Search Engine Watch.
Tony Macklin, spokesman for Ask Jeeves, said the results reflected its own research which showed that people use different search engines because the way the sites gather information means they can provide different results for the same query.
BBC: Many people stick with one search engine such as Google
Being able to prove a business concept in a hurry, even if the product isn't perfect, is especially attractive to investors, says Peter Bell, general partner with Highland Capital Partners, a venture firm in Lexington, Mass. that staked Digg, Mapquest and Ask Jeeves.
Even without Jeeves, Ask.com can still take you anywhere on the net you need to go.
FORBES: Happy B-day, Jeeves: As Ask.com Turns 15, A Refocus on Q&A
Jeeves, the former mascot of struggling search engine Ask.com, may be dead.
应用推荐