WebProNews

LookSmart just added contextual ad serving and optimization to its AdCenter platform. With the addition publishers are given more control over the relevance and appearance of ads appearing on websites.

LookSmart's technology centers on semantic analysis of page content to determine the relevant topics for ads – the thought being that relevant ads improve ROI for advertisers.

"With the addition of contextual, publishers now have a complete ad serving and revenue optimization solution that they totally control," says Dave Hills, president and CEO of LookSmart.

LookSmart licenses its AdCenter services to some heavy hitters like Ask.com, which uses the service to manage advertiser relationships and accounts.

In April, LookSmart announced an ad backfill capability which uses ad network feeds from other publishers to help increase revenue and bidding activity.

The backfill capability is the most recent addition to a string of releases the company has added as of late, following yield-focused ad serving algorithms, advertiser and publisher APIs, and reporting features.