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Ask.com's Rising Star

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the going-up dept.

hdtv writes "Fortune magazine takes a look at Ask.com, a site originally designed to respond to queries in human language that grew into a full-blown search engine after the Teoma acquisition. According to Fortune, Ask.com has many features not available with rivals -- topic clusters, quick facts from Wikipedia on the search page, and, (what counts most) fewer ads than any of the rivals. Currently Ask.com maintains 5.9% share, a share that Fortune is sure will grow."

3 of 128 comments (clear)

  1. What about punctuation? by corsec67 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    The next thing I want in a search engine is for punctuation to be a part of the search.
    For example, how do you search for the difference between the following 2 LaTeX commands:
    \circle
    \circle*
    (I know the answer now, but I had to look it up in my reference book, as google was just about worthless for my "latex star" query)
    --
    If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
  2. Ask.com: Google's up-and-coming rival?! by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The title of the article is "Ask.com: Google's up-and-coming rival", but I still want to know (and this is the third time I've asked):

    Why is Ask.com considered a Google "rival" if it primarily serves Google ads?

    (How do I know? It serves an ad I've only placed through Google.)

    1. Re:Ask.com: Google's up-and-coming rival?! by joeykiller · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Would you say MSN Search was _not_ a competitor of Yahoo Search, just because of the fact that they shared the ad system? (MSN Search used Overture (Yahoo) Ads until recently, when they in the US switched to their own AdCenter) I think the article indicates that Ask won't be using Google Ads indefintely, but that they'll contractually obliged to continue using Google for quite som time. From the article:
      its ads are provided by that much-larger competitor, in a deal that extends through the end of next year.

      There's no economy in search ads before you have a large number of advertisers. This is because of the auction driven pricing and the fact that you buy keywords and search phrases. So before you're big enough on your own, you need the scale of a bigger network to get any revenues to speak of.

      So shall they make it completely on their own, they need to grow. That's why they, in my eyes, are a Google Competitor, even though Google (for the time being) earns money on their success.

      PS! One irony: Ask tries to monetize Image Searches with Google Ads, an area where Google is not trying to earn money yet. So the irony goes both ways, apparently.