What happened to BlueLithium? (or, can Yahoo do anything right?)
By Jason Menayan September 25th, 2009
Just two years ago, Yahoo made another one of its expensive acquisitions by buying display ad network BlueLithium for $300 million. With a stated intent to marry rich analytical data with behavioral targeting, the ad network, founded just three years prior, was the fifth-largest in the US and the second-largest in the UK, with a reach of around 145 million monthly uniques.
Today—two short years later—it’s impossible to find it.
Google Blue Lithium or BlueLithium and the first page of results point to various news releases about the acquisition or stale company profile pages like on CrunchBase. There’s no link to a rebranding “BlueLithium is now Yahoo Web Advertising” or something similar that you’d expect. In fact, there’s no link to a yahoo.com URL whatsoever. (And just in case Google was gaming the SERP for its competitor, a quick look at Yahoo’s SERP shows similarly vacant results.)
Even worse: typing in bluelithium.com goes nowhere. As in a persistent time-out error. No 301 to Yahoo advertising.
This is beyond bizarre. Among publishers and advertisers, BlueLithium had developed a bit of a brand for itself; it was a name that was recognized. Branded searches (over 50,000 in August alone according to the Google keyword tool) and direct type-ins have undoubtedly continued. The ad network still exists (YieldBuild, in fact, supports it).
Doesn’t it strike anyone as strange that the network seems to have stonewalled any interest among publishers or advertisers that might be potential customers of Yahoo advertising? I mean, isn’t that Yahoo’s business?
This entry was posted on Friday, September 25th, 2009 at 10:33 am and is filed under Online Advertising, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
September 27th, 2009 at 7:38 am
Yahoo don’t seem to have a Plan. if I am in Gmail the ads are Appealing sometimes but in Yahoo mail they are just annoying.Yahoo seem to think we have the Traffic and Leave it so,No optimization or Effort put into their ads. They should know that I am over 30 and I am not into Ringtones for Example. I think the whole problem with Yahoo is they try to earn with their name alone, And buy any company thinking they will profit from it because they are the world know Yahoo.
November 14th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
We can all learn from Yahoo in the What Not To Do Department
January 12th, 2011 at 8:53 pm
So how on earth do you get rid of the stupid redirect? I can’t opt out but all of a sudden, this week, when I access Yahoo news stories, I’m redirected to a dead website “ad.bluelithium”. Help?
January 20th, 2011 at 10:43 pm
When i click on an appealing news story I get the Blue Lithium url and can’t get to the news item. So instead, I type in the news item in Google and get there if I’m really nterested. Isn’t ths self=defeating on Yahoo’s part? Makes no sense to me.
February 2nd, 2011 at 7:21 pm
Blue Lithium is part of Yahoo spy service for the Goverment
Yahoo cuaght several years ago spyng on americans..
now they use this tech to spy on everyone for the gov…
there is no way to get rid of it…
except quit using yahoo
all other blogs and attemps to remove it are just that ….attemps…
February 23rd, 2011 at 9:41 pm
How can I fix the problem when I open yahoo mail and “Ads.bluelithium”pops up, then the internet disconnect ?
February 24th, 2011 at 12:55 pm
How do I get bluelithium off ogf my computer? It ate my e-mail!
February 24th, 2011 at 1:30 pm
my email is hijacked by this site. how can I get my inbow back?
February 25th, 2011 at 10:48 am
ever time I try to read my yahoo mail, It gets redirected to this blue lithium thing. I am very upset. How do I get this off my computer???????