Bigmouthmedia search engine news: ask

It looks like Ask.com is planning on having words with its competitors

Fri, 16 May 2008 12:00:00 GMT

It's been reported that Ask.com has agreed to acquire privately-held Lexico Publishing - the company that owns word-heavy sites Dictionary.com, Thesauras.com and Reference.com - for an estimated $100 million.

According to the Guardian, the move will increase Ask.com's traffic by 11% globally and 9% in the UK, an increase that the company will hope could push them closer to the Search World's biggest players and which would justify the price tag - although the exact figure has not been confirmed by the search engine.

Ask.com claimed that March figures from comScore revealed that Ask Network (comprising all of the company's web properties), received around 145 million monthly unique users. Putting them ahead of sites such as Facebook and ranking them as the ninth most popular website in the world. The addition of Ask.com's reported 15 million visitors in the same month must have proved tempting.

The benefits of the acquisition for the search engine could be numerous, Dictionary.com sells ads and Ask.com has an advertising deal with Google - so Ask.com may be able to increase ad revenue. Moreover, the deal could serve as a way to generate more traffic for Ask.com as the sites will attempt to cycle traffic between them.

Apparently the search engine plans to create reference synergy, a fair point when you discover that 'dictionary' was the second most searched for term on the site last year. Jim Safka, Ask.com's chief executive said:

"More than 30% of all searches conducted on Ask.com are in the reference category."

This is just the latest move in Ask.com's offensive to drag itself out of forth place in the search engine rankings - languishing behind Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft at first, second and third respectively. Recent attempts have included plans to focus on a predominantly female market with limited success - maybe this acquisition will give them the clout they needs to continue snapping at Microsoft's heels.

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Where do searchers go after leaving Ask UK?

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 12:00:00 GMT

With the Microsoft-Yahoo-Google tangle dominating search headlines for the last two months, it's been a quiet time for Ask.

The exit of then CEO Jim Lanzone in January was followed by a change in direction from the search engine, which has aimed to concentrate on appealing to and retaining its most loyal followers.

However, recent research by comScore has revealed that Ask's new strategy might not be working as well as it hopes - at least in the UK. According to the figures, Google receives more traffic from users leaving Ask UK than eBay and Microsoft sites, its two closest rivals, combined. March's figures from comScore show that YouTube, Google Search, Blogger properties and Google Maps are highly ranked outgoing traffic sites.

ComScore's Media Metrix "outgoing traffic losses" report indicates the web properties that users browse after visiting Ask UK. The top outgoing traffic sites are dominated by search engines, social networks and portals.

1. Google Sites
2. eBay
3. Microsoft Sites
4. Ask Network
5. Yahoo! Sites
6. BBC Sites
7. Facebook
8. Bebo
9. Wikipedia Sites
10. Yellow Book Network

The combined top ten accounts for nearly 30% of Ask UK's outgoing traffic losses - and the outgoing top ten is a near mirror image of the incoming top ten.

1. Google Sites
2. Microsoft Sites
3. eBay
4. Ask Network
5. Yahoo! Sites
6. BBC Sites
7. AOL
8. Facebook
9. Virgin Media
10. Amazon Sites

ComScore's incoming and outgoing traffic rankings include traffic generated by click through activity, but also takes into account users entering new addresses in their browser bar or selecting bookmarks.

Ask's current CEO is Jim Safka, who also runs IAC's investment arm Primal Ventures. In March, bigmouthmedia reported on Ask's change of direction, through which it hopes to gain the patronage of women searching for information on entertainment and health.

At the time, Charlene Li - an analyst for Forrester Research - (perhaps prophetically) claimed: "It's a smart move. I still think Ask has great technology but it's just really hard to fight against Google."

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Ask.com to focus on narrower market

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 12:00:00 GMT

Search engine Ask.com has revealed a dramatic change in direction, announcing it is to focus on a narrower market consisting predominantly of married women.

The company, which was founded in 1996 by Garrett Gruener and David Warthen, also stated it is to get rid of around 40 employees, representing eight per cent of its workforce, the Associated Press reports.

In pursuing this target market, Ask.com is turning away from direct competition with rivals such as Google and returning to its roots. Under its previous appellation Ask Jeeves, the search engine was initially known as a provider of answers to questions concerning such topics as hobbies, children's homework, health and recipes.

Commenting on the firm's new direction, Forrester Research analyst Charlene Li stated: "It's a smart move. I still think Ask has great technology, but it's just really hard to fight against Google."

Ms Li went on to say that the women set to be targeted by Ask will be pleased to a have search engine which focuses on their interests.

She said: "It's not so much that these women have simple questions. It's just that they are so busy that they need fast answers."

Meanwhile, Jim Safka, who became Ask's chief executive two months ago, added that the shift in emphasis will bring renewed energy to the search engine.

He commented: "Everyone at Ask is excited about our clear focus and the trajectory-changing results it will deliver."

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US internet users 'conducted more than 10bn searches in January'

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 12:00:00 GMT

Internet users in the US conducted a combined total of more than ten billion searches using core search engines last month, according to new research.

Figures produced by comScore suggest that, during January, a total of 10.5 billion searches were carried out using the five main search engines, representing an increase of 8.9 per cent compared with December.

Additionally, it was found that Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, AOL and Ask.com all experienced growth in January of at least five per cent over the preceding month.

Proving most popular among internet users in the country, Google processed 6.1 billion searches, a rise of 9.1 per cent versus December.

This represents a marginal extension of the firm's share of core searches to 58.5 per cent.

Meanwhile, the next most used search engine was Yahoo!, which handled just over 2.3 billion search queries, up 5.5 per cent on the previous month and representing a share of 22.2 per cent.

Microsoft was identified as the third most popular search engine, dealing with a little over one billion searches and possessing a share of 9.8 per cent of total queries among the core providers.

The company experiencing the greatest percentage increase in terms of searches was found to be AOL, which saw its processing of queries rise by 16.5 per cent, followed by Ask.com at 14.6 per cent.

Research released earlier this week by comScore indicated that tax, politics, career and real estate sites all saw increased visits by US internet users during January.

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Ask launches BigNews in partnership with Digg

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 12:00:00 GMT

Search engine Ask has launched a news website entitled BigNews in collaboration with community information site Digg.

Digg is one of the web's most popular social bookmarking sites, through which users are able to 'digg' stories they like and share them with other users - a feature on which BigNews capitalises.

Ask's site uses technology described as "the BigFactor" to rank stories based on issues such as impact, quantity of multimedia, freshness and amount of related discussion.

The search engine describes the services as a means of helping internet users locate and track the "most important and most talked about stories in the news".

Through the site, users can monitor stories and follow their progression over time, discover the top videos and the most popular people in the news, and get additional background information on searches, among other things.

It provides category clusters and allows users to browse by "top Diggs" and "no Diggs", while also containing a Blogviews area that highlights the latest posts from selected blogs.

According to Ask, BigNews already has nearly 10,000 news sources available to it.

Promoting its new offering, Ask states: "Do you like finding many viewpoints, not just stories from the wire services? Do you like the idea of a mix of results of videos, images, articles and blogs in one neat package? Do you like more effective search tools to find a specific story of interest? Do you like the idea of knowing which stories people are talking around the water cooler?

"If you answered 'yes' to any of these questions, then, we welcome you to Ask BigNews."

A recent post on influential tech blog TechCrunch reported that Digg nearly tripled its user base last year, from just over 750, 000 in December 2006 to 2.7 million in December 2007.

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Ask.com announces Skins upgrade

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 12:00:00 GMT

Search engine provider Ask.com has announced an upgrade to the Skins feature it released last year.

Part of the Ask3D package, Skins allows users to change the designs of their Ask.com homepages and now, as a result of the upgrade, they will be able to upload their own images to serve as a background.

According to the company, among the users of the feature, this particular update was the most requested.

In order to take advantage of the new capability, users have to click on the Skins bubble on the Ask.com homepage and select the 'upload your own' button.

They then must select an image from their computers or enter an image URL and agree to the terms and conditions.

Following this, users can choose a name for the image they have decided to use, as well as a text colour and where they would like the skin aligned on the homepage.

All that remains is for them to click the 'next' button to confirm their new skin. At this stage, it is also possible to make alterations.

In addition to this new feature, Ask.com has revealed it has added more images to its library and introduced the ability to browse through them easily.

Unveiled originally in June 2007, Ask3D was designed to provide users with a fresh interface and improved search technology to give them quicker access to the information they are seeking.

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Ask.com CEO steps down in management reshuffle

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 12:00:00 GMT

Search engine Ask.com is set to undergo a significant management reorganisation as it prepares to separate into five publicly traded companies, it has been revealed.

As part of the shakeup, chief executive officer of the firm Jim Lanzone is leaving to be replaced by Jim Safka.

Mr Lanzone, who took on his position with the company in 2006, will remain in an advisory role at Ask.com for a few months while also performing the role of entrepreneur-in-residence with his new employers at Redpoint Ventures.

"Jim Lanzone was the principal executive responsible for Ask.com's turnaround over the last two years. His passion for innovation and his everyday dedication to the business and its people have been everything anyone could ask for," stated Barry Diller, chairman and chief executive officer at IAC - which acquired Ask.com in 2005 for $1.5 billion.

His replacement Mr Safka will now oversee the firm's global operations while continuing in his role as chief executive officer of Primal Ventures, a new venture entity organisation that identifies and grows businesses opportunities for IAC.

Meanwhile, Scott Garell, chief executive of IAC's consumer applications and portals group, has been made president of Ask.com. He will replace John Park, who has been named as president of the group.

Speaking about the reorganisation, Mr Diller stated: "These changes are intended to strengthen and streamline the operating structure at IAC, both leading up to our intended spin-offs and beyond."

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Ask.com launches Click to Speak

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 12:00:00 GMT

Search engine Ask.com has announced it has introduced free voice-activated capabilities to its Mobile Directions service.

Click to Speak, as it is known, enables users to specify their location and desired destination via speech and await directions on their internet-enabled mobile devices.

According to a company statement, the new service is designed to eliminate the need for typing addresses, which can be "slow, error-prone and, in some cases, unsafe".

"Voice input is one more way Ask.com Mobile helps searchers find exactly what they are looking for faster and easier," stated Doug Leeds, senior vice president of product management at Ask.com.

Click to Speak is quick, free and accurate and makes driving or walking directions "a breeze", he added.

Meanwhile, Amit Desai, co-founder and chief product officer of Dial Directions, the voice-activated phone service that will provide Ask.com users with the new feature, commented: "Voice input is a natural complement to the Ask.com Mobile Directions service.

"We look forward to a continued relationship with Ask.com as they look for new ways to further improve the mobile web search experience with Ask.com Mobile."

According to Mr Desai, Click to Speak offers a "dramatic improvement" over typing addresses on mobile devices.

Dial Directions is a free service that is available across the US. It allows mobile phone users to request directions to a location via a phone call and receive them by text message.

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Google proves most popular US search engine in November

Fri, 28 Dec 2007 12:00:00 GMT

Google proved the most popular search engine in the US during November, according to new research.

Figures produced by Nielsen Online revealed that, during the period, the internet giant was used for a total of over 4.25 billion searches, representing 57.7 per cent of all online queries.

This represents an increase on October's results, when Google users were found to be responsible for a total of 4.40 billion searches - 55.5 per cent of the complete number.

Meanwhile, Yahoo! was found to the second most popular search engine, having processed 1.32 billion queries, or 17.9 per cent of searches.

In third place over the month was fellow rival Microsoft, which recorded 880.6 million queries, representing 12 per cent of searches conducted in the country.

Coming fourth and fifth in the popularity stakes were AOL and Ask.com, which were involved in the processing of 4.5 per cent and 2.7 per cent of internet searches respectively during November.

These findings roughly corroborate those published earlier this month by comScore, which also indicated that Google was the top search property.

According to its statistics, the company had a total of 5.9 billion queries during November, representing 58.8 per cent of the search market.

The digital measuring firm also identified Yahoo! as the second most popular search engine provider, suggesting that its sites experienced 22.4 per cent of the total number of queries.

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Ask.com offers increased privacy

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 12:00:00 GMT

Ask.com has launched a new service, entitled AskEraser, which enables users to make their searches more private.

According to a company statement, the tool will allow users to wipe their search history and will ensure that users' records will not be kept by the company in any form for any period of time.

It said: "Searchers will have easy access to AskEraser and can change their privacy preference at any time.

"Once selected, searchers' privacy settings will be clearly indicated on search results pages so they always know the privacy status of their searches."

The service is displayed conspicuously on Ask.com's main search page and people are able to turn AskEraser on or off with one click.

Jim Lanzone, Ask.com's chief executive officer, added that, although anonymous user data can be "very useful to enhance search products for all users", the company understands that there are people who are interested in new tools to help them protect their information.

The move follows recent attempts by rival Google to increase its reputation among privacy advocates by shortening the lifespan of its search preference cookies.

According to the New York Times, Ask.com is hoping the new offering will set it apart from rival search engine providers.

However, Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of research firm the Ponemon Institute, stated: "My gut tells me that basically it is not going to be a competitive advantage.

"I think people will look at it and see it as a cool thing and they may use it. But I don't think it will be a market differentiator."

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