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First of all, I congratulate you for making attempts to improve the worlds
searching (and also on the look of your website - I love that blue!). How is
this different from ask.com though (Powerset's
search didn't give me an answer to that).

Yahoo isn't just stamped on them, it is them. Do a search on yahoo and a search on Alta Vista. The results are carbon copies.

I didn't know this, I don't use Yahoo! for searches and haven't for years. Most of the tyme I use Google however I also use About.com, Altavista, Ask.com, and Mooter.

I'd rather have 2 big players instead of one colossus Search company that if things go wrong, the whole planet suffers.

I don't think this is quite true. Unlike an OS or apps it's easy to switch your search engine. While I mostly use Google I also use About, Alta Vista, Ask.com, and Mooter. On the other hand, if you're using online apps then yes it can be hard to switch. However I'd rather have my apps running and my docs stored locally. At most I'd vpn into my home server while on the road.

I have it on pretty good authority that Ask.com will likely not renew their contract with Google for serving paid ads. Ask has been developing their own platform and is working pretty heavily to recruit advertisers to it. You can see it here.

I think the mistake we're using here is that we're assuming most folks consume their news like we do. Sorry to generalize but I believe most of us seek to become informed and thoroughly review and critique what we read. However, most people are satisfied with tidbits and in fact want nothing more. For example, the macob are satisfied with a headline like "Multiple Car Accident Kills 50" and a thumb of the pile up... the noseies like "Brad Wears Ugly Glasses For the First Time" and a thumb... etc. Yes those are terrible headlines and hyperbole to make my point. Imagine a search engine unlike Google which provides summaries of multiple sources offering these tidbits in a single page without the source's ads? Oh wait http://www.ask.com/ and perhaps others although I'm stating soley that they have such a type of offering and not that they do so violating any rules.

I'm against most tactics that appear to be an organization seeking to squash an alternative or new and unknown element they think is encroaching on their bottom line and this move smells of it but feel it's a rare case of smoke without an actual fire. Just wanted to throw that out there while I seek more info on this tidbit.

given the undeniable trend towards more-and-more web-based advertising, and given Google's dominance therein, the fact that they are well on their way to becoming a Microsoft-like monopoly is not only possible, it's very likely.

While I use Google more than any other search engine, I am not locked into using Google. Other SEs I use are About.com; Teoma, now Ask.com; and Mooter. It's real easy and quick to change SEs, however this isn't true for MS software. There's no way Google is a monopoly like MS. They may practice some of the same stuff, like looking over a small business under an NDA to possibly invest but come out with their own version of a product instead of investing but Google does not have any lock on either searches or ads.

And with their incredibly detailed databases on each and every one of us (from our gmail, our online office apps, our google search history, our google chats, etc)

All I use Google for is searching. I have no Gmail, no chats, and no apps. And even then I don't use Google's search exclusively, there are 4 SEs I regularly use.

they can make it virtually impossible for their customers (businesses) to switch to another advertiser, since the effectiveness of Google's ads will greatly exceed that of their competitors.

Ah but as TFA says Google's ads are loosing effectiveness. It's also easy for someone else to step in with advertising.

Lycos and Ask use sponsored results that are harder to differentiate from normal ones because they don't use a different colored background. Ebay even allows sellers to pay to be at the top, but they also name them Featured Items and put them in their own area.

Once again, they're all free services. Go out and create a perfect search engine and charge people to use it, or you can use Excite, which doesn't appear to use featured or paid search results.

Of course I'm kidding, we should sue the people that sue Google.

Lycos and Ask use sponsored results that are harder to differentiate from normal ones because they don't use a different colored background. Ebay even allows sellers to pay to be at the top, but they also name them Featured Items and put them in their own area.

Once again, they're all free services. Go out and create a perfect search engine and charge people to use it, or you can use Excite, which doesn't appear to use featured or paid search results.

Of course I'm kidding, we should sue the people that sue Google.

Technologies like Flash and AJAX and all the other technologies surrounding and supporting them can add a great deal of value to a website, but only if done correctly.

ask.com has made significant advances since the time it was askjeeves.com.
They are using Teoma's algorithm. In a few head-to-head comparisons I've done with Google, the results differed slightly but were about equally accurate and useful.

The article might have a minor point, the Google page does look a little dated now, especially compared to the minimalistic but more modern looking ask.com front page.

Mind you, there are probably really good reasons not to change to an ask.com type frontpage like accessibility for the blind, and for that 2-3 percent of users who still don't have browsers that can handle complicated CSS.

In support of the this is all pretty much "crap," I give you the policy directly from ask.com's privacy policy. So, you can delete it, and it will look like it's deleted to you but we're going to keep it forever.

http://about.ask.com/en/docs/about/privacy.shtml

Can you review, edit, or delete the personally identifiable information that we have collected about you online that we maintain?

To review, revise or delete the personally identifiable information that we have collected about you online that we maintain, please log in to your profile and edit accordingly - Profile Page. However, please understand that although this information, once deleted, is not available on the Sites, that information may remain stored indefinitely in our backup and archival records.

I call bullshit. You've got no credentials to put on the table in this forum, so the fallacious appeal to authority, is, as usual, trumped by the "appeal to actual sources"...Your claims that there are never problems with breastfeeding are trumped by tens of thousands of pages saying you're wrong.

Even if you have the experience you claim, which I find highly unlikely, the only other possibility is that you're one of those La Leche style breastfeeding nazi's who refuse to accept that there could ever be a problem with breastfeeding...Equally deluded on the other side of the fence.

Yeap, Thomas Jefferson warned of corporate challenges to government: "I hope we shall crush ... in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country."

Great quote. Sucks I don't have mod points today. Can you source it for me?

Corporate Accountability Project. Thomas Jefferson: On Central Banking.

I also found these on where TJ denounces corporate power:
Thomas Jefferson: Against Corporate Power, Thomas Jefferson's Dream. Ask.com has more.

While I'm sure there's lots of cases where Google searches don't lead you to the page you want. There's a pretty clear explanation for this one. The page you want doesn't have the word you' re searching for. Where as if you searched for "thinstall isolation modes" you would have got it.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=thinstall+iso lation+modes&btnG=Search

For comparison's sake, look at :
http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=DirectoryIso lationMode
http://www.ask.com/web?q=DirectoryIsolationMode&se arch=search&qsrc=0&o=333&l=dir
http://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=A0oGkyEomaJGRg cBZlal87UF?ei=utf-8&fr=sfp&p=DirectoryIsolationMod e&iscqry=&fspl=1

It'll be interesting to see if the changes they made are of interest to other places using MySQL.

Why don't you ask Jeeves then?

Except that in a truly free society you don't need to wait for the next election to take corrective action. If you depend on a commercial entity in a capitalist economy you are free to change anytime if you are less than satisfied with the products and services rendered.

That's exactly how Google came to exist, people voted with their browsers to elect a new favorite search site. Feel free to vote differently if you are not perfectly satisfied with the current status.

Of course, all that depends on that society being free, which means it must have a free press to keep citizens informed of their options and rights, and it must have a liberal capitalistic economy, to let new corporations providing better products replace the older ones.

Jeeves doesn't know. Jeeves does know, however, that American Idol and Britney Spears used to be the top search terms.

http://www.ask.com/web?q=Why+is+Google's+number+on e+search+term+Yahoo%3F&qsrc=0&o=333&l=dir

OP might have a point that this is slashvertisement. javalobby is on the top for the 4 primary search engines.

http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=javalobby&sr c=IE-SearchBox
http://www.ask.com/web?q=javalobby&qsrc=0&o=333&l= dir
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=javalobby&ei=utf- 8&fr=b2ie7
http://www.google.com/search?q=javalobby&rls=com.m icrosoft:en-us&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&start Page=1

Uh Oh... too bad

In theory a problem for all the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em (*ahem* confuse 'em?)" school of search destinations, but.. Google will never enforce the patent, so its probably moot...
----
graphically speaking

Which monopoly was that?

On the other hand, it looks like Ask.com is accusing Google of censorship in the future! It's listed in the top-25 censorship stories of 2007. See for youself, (in case they removed it, screenshot)

Lucky for them I have a secret way of finding content on the internet.

• Computerworld
• National Federantion of the Blind (one of the plaintiffs)
• Disability Rights Advocates (the plaintiffs' lawyers

Hey Rob, can I get my editor's fee now?

The Top-10 Alternatives to "I googled it" (note the lower-case 'g'):

• 10 "I AltaVista'd it" (potential ad campaign: "Hasta la vista, Google!")
• 9 "I Yahoo!'d it" (Good luck with that lawsuit; it's been in the official motto of several states for decades!)
• 8 "I Asked it" (AKA "I just axed it", since they "axed" poor Jeeves...)
• 7 "I HotBot'd it" (She's not all that hot these days...)
• 6 "I WebCrawler'd it" (Crawl being the operative word; no speed records broken here!)
• 5 "I Accoona'd it" (Possibly illegal to admit in several states)
• 4 "I Lycos'd it" (Not to be confused with "I Pecos'd it" from the 1950's...)
• 3 "I Netscaped it" (That's netscaped not netscraped)
• 2 "I AOL'd it" (Roughly analogous to "I screwed it up")

• 1 "I Dogpile'd it" (Imagine Cartman in the "red rocket" scene...)

A coworker was using Windows Live Local, which is really cool if you live in one of the places that have Bird's Eye (TM) maps. Example: a baseball game seen aerially so close you can make out individual players on the field!

Also cool on Live: traffic, which Google Maps doesn't provide. Ask.com maps is another site that has outdone Google in mapping. Competition is truly good and I thank Google for raising the bar here.

Interestingly, Google's search toolbar will be available only when Shockwave is downloaded for use with Internet Explorer on Windows.

What else would you expect, given that most people access reality through a computer or TV screen? Why ask a person when you can ask a computer? Why deal with ordinary people in your neighborhood when you can risklessly gape at people who are much more beautiful or who lead more exciting or important lives, or perhaps take comfort in the fact that you can always find abundant reinforcement for your choices online?

And here I am, typing this, while my kids are playing in the other room, inventing a much more exciting world, which I am welcome to join. Gotta go!

dude you didn't know? ask.com IS jeeves http://sp.uk.ask.com/en/docs/about/jeeves_retireme nt.shtml- he was fired man, i'm sorry i had to be the one to tell you

In my case it's no problem. I'm with Cingular, where you get get n*100 minutes "free". I have no roaming in two states (Illinois and Missouri) and no long distance charges anywhere in North America.

The only time I ever went over my minutes was when I let my teenaged daughter have a cell phone on my plan. That only happened once, I took her phone away.

I pay $37.00 per month, taxes, tarriffs etc included. Ask.com says that's 20.6202 UK Pounds. It's also about $15 (8.2481 UK Pounds) to $20 (10.9974 UK Pounds) less than I was paying with a land line, even though both incoming and outgoing calls were "free" (fixed rate per month unlimited useage) on the land line. This didn't include long distance calls, and most people I call are long distance.

When I first got a cell phone I did chafe about this, until I realized that I was paying a lot less for the cell than for the land line (with long distance my bill often approached $100 per month).

So in my case I'm not complaining, as I'm paying a lot less than when all my calls were "free" both ways.

Plus there's the added benefit of when you have some long-winded person call you, you can say "sorry, I'm on minutes, I have to go".

Yes, we all know this. We do work in a Search company you know (as I already stated).

The problem is Ask.com doesn't index technical data like Google does. One of the largest missing pieces in the index is the MSDN as one small example.

While alot of us do feel Ask is *better* than google at general life questions, it is horrible at technical queries.

This leads us to having to think about what we will be searching for and deciding which search engine to use before typing in http://ask.com/ or google.com

It's much easier to just type Google.com and have it all.

Google is like the jack-of-all trades, Good at everything but GREAT at nothing. Ask is GREAT at a certain segment of searches and unfortunetly poor at others.

I think this is why Ask is the backup-search engine for most people. When and if Google's jack-of-all trades approach fails, try out Ask's search engine.

They are working on the problem though, it is technically challenging to expand the index to include alot more types of information and remain relevant, but they are working very hard on it and I hope they continue to innovate in the search space as they have been and give Google a run for their money.

Bill Gates recently said in a conference that Ask is the only company doing true innovation in search for real people. It's funny you'd think he'd say that about his own MSN search.

Disturbing. Oddly enough, their terms of service does not say "Ask has the right to create censorbots that restrict what you can see on the web.

However, if you look at their preferences page, you'll see two options, which essentially say "Filter content, but allow me to bypass the filter" and "Filter content silently". This appears to violate their implied contract, i.e., that you'll have a chance to see "adult" material once you acknowledge the filter.

Disturbing. Oddly enough, their terms of service does not say "Ask has the right to create censorbots that restrict what you can see on the web.

However, if you look at their preferences page, you'll see two options, which essentially say "Filter content, but allow me to bypass the filter" and "Filter content silently". This appears to violate their implied contract, i.e., that you'll have a chance to see "adult" material once you acknowledge the filter.

Jeeves http://www.ask.com/ ?

I don't know why Ask.com decided to only allow searches in English but... an attempt to search in Ask.com would provide exactly zero rezults, versus about 10 000 in Google Search or 600 in A9 (basically MSN search).
Yes, English-speaking users in US and Europe are valuable in terms of potential "click-revenue" but cutting out everyone else is, IMHO, bad policy (and Ask.com won't let you look up in Kanji either: this has one "sponsored click-link" versus 100 000 000 results from google with same sponsored link :) ). That's why I don't believe in this "Ask.com will move up in ranks like crazy!" PR stuff. Ask will remain a small engine for very limited use, while other engines will grow along with non-English internet. Now they can be profitable at being small, but there is no significant growth prospect. And Wall Street loves mega-growth prospect...

I don't know why Ask.com decided to only allow searches in English but... an attempt to search in Ask.com would provide exactly zero rezults, versus about 10 000 in Google Search or 600 in A9 (basically MSN search).
Yes, English-speaking users in US and Europe are valuable in terms of potential "click-revenue" but cutting out everyone else is, IMHO, bad policy (and Ask.com won't let you look up in Kanji either: this has one "sponsored click-link" versus 100 000 000 results from google with same sponsored link :) ). That's why I don't believe in this "Ask.com will move up in ranks like crazy!" PR stuff. Ask will remain a small engine for very limited use, while other engines will grow along with non-English internet. Now they can be profitable at being small, but there is no significant growth prospect. And Wall Street loves mega-growth prospect...

Ask does a pretty good job of finding and setting apart the answer for both of those queries.

Ask does a pretty good job of finding and setting apart the answer for both of those queries.

You used to be able to go to teoma.com and get a very clean page. now it redirects you to this fancy looking page. I still like Ask Desktop Search. It's a bit nicer in some ways than Google Desktop.

You used to be able to go to teoma.com and get a very clean page. now it redirects you to this fancy looking page. I still like Ask Desktop Search. It's a bit nicer in some ways than Google Desktop.

While they've been primarily supported by Google Ads, they're developing their own ad platform http://sponsoredlistings.ask.com/, which I think has not gathered enough critical mass among advertisers.

Yes, but it's right on the money with Why does my poop turn green after drinking purple gatorade?.

Ask.com's first result is a webpage on How many fingers can you fit into your ass?. Now that's useful... ;)

The only reference in TFA about ask.com maps is "Its map and image search products, too, offer distinct advantages over the competition. Not much. However, see the maps tools and read a review of it. If these maps-topics is of your interest, see also http://slashgeo.org/ :-)

I saw a tv commercial for ask jeeves the other night and thought I would check out this binocular feature. It's actually kind of neat. I think it would help more for doing searches that you know are image intensive, like cheetah rather than plain text, but still, I like their thinking.

Oh, and this is a real-world example. I have an article on OpenBSD due soon, and I wanted to make sure I remembered the history correctly.

Their satalite data is newer than google's. Specifically, their arial photos of New Orleans show the debries of Katrina

http://maps.ask.com/maps?l=lt%3D30.0173074407%7Clg %3D-90.1094287634%7Cal%3D-1%7Ccx%3D-16797615%7Ccy% 3D-5870704%7Czm%3D1%7Cvt%3D1~lt%3D29.95444%7Clg%3D -90.075%7Cad%3DNew%20Orleans%2C%20LA%7Csd%3D0%7Cdm %3D0~#1

Gilroy hotels

See what you turn up (or substitute your own city of choice). Google is crammed full of BS fake ad sites for this search (and has been for years). A long time ago on Google this search would pull up useful information from personal websites about good hotels in the area.

Ask.com provides a somewhat more credible set of results, but still plenty of fake ad sites.

In my opinion, until somebody cracks the BS ad site problem, our search engine technology is really just incremental. As far as "narrowing search results" on ask.com - that doesn't seem like what the feature does. It seems more like a semantic prompt. In this case, it asks if I would like to run a search on "City of Gilroy." Note this doesn't narrow my search of Gilroy hotels, but replaces it completely, giving me (useful) results about the City of Gilroy in general.

the international versions of ask don't have a different background colour and have '%% Web Results' randomly placed above the back/forward links. They also have an affiliate accounts with Lycos, Yahoo! and Excite which they link to.

eg.http://uk.ask.com/web?q=mortgage&qsrc=0&o=312

1. Ads appear at the top before normal search results
2. Narrowing down the results appears on the right side -- a very unintuitive place to look for such options
3. It seems to be a Google clone -- Google in 2002, that is
4. When I mispelled a search term, it placed the corrected spelling BELOW the ads

To sum most of my points above, see this search for "Microsoft" on Google (2,540,000,000 results) vs. Ask (96,550,00 results). Ask's results page is ad ridden and clumy. Click on the links to see it for yourself. Below is what I see above the page crease:

Ask (no search time shown):
Latest News: Microsoft
Dueling Fools: Microsoft Bull Motley Fool 25 minutes ago
Microsoft Defends Itself at EU Hearing COX.net for San Diego 36 minutes ago

Sponsored Results Microsoft Help & Updates
Fix Microsoft Errors, Free Download Free Microsoft Support Today!
dllfix.net

Microsoft Help & Updates
Free Download, Fix Microsoft Errors Microsoft Support & Repair Service
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MS Software up to 60% off
Microsoft Software - 60% Off 100% Authentic Microsoft Software
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[[Regular results]]
Microsoft Corporation
Official homepage of Microsoft Corporation...
www.microsoft.com/ Cached Save

Microsoft Windows AntiSpyware (Beta) Home
Find out how to use the new Microsoft Windows AntiSpyware (Beta) to detect and remove spyware and other unwanted software that can track every move...
www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software /default.mspx Save
More Results from www.microsoft.com

Google (0.16 seconds):
[[Regular results]]
Microsoft Corporation
The entry page to Microsoft's Web site. Find software, solutions, answers, support, and Microsoft news.
www.microsoft.com/ - 26k - Cached - Similar pages - Remove result

Microsoft Update - More Popular Downloads
Office Update - Office
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Microsoft Windows Update
Latest bug fixes for Microsoft Windows, including fixes for some possible DoS attacks.
windowsupdate.microsoft.com/ - Similar pages - Remove result

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Microsoft's newly renamed portal entry. Features personalization, channels of content sites like Carpoint, and integration with Hotmail e-mail.
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Technical support for Microsoft Office products including Access.
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Xbox.com is your ultimate source for all things Xbox and Xbox 360. Get news updates; game trailers, scree