I just got word that the co-founder of Teoma, the search engine Ask.com acquired to power natural search, Apostolos Gerasoulis has left Ask.com. Apostolos Gerasoulis was the executive vice president of search technology for Ask.com.

If you look his Linkedin profile you will see his current position is no longer being at Ask.com. Here is a screen shot:

Apostolos has been the force behind all the search technology deployed at Ask.com for the past years. Him leaving is another major let down for the future of Ask.com’s core search technology. Most of you know my thoughts on Ask.com’s focus or lack-there-of, for when it comes to search.

Like I said above, this is a significant change for Ask.com. Not only was he the lead of all search at Ask.com and the founder of the technology, he was also used in several Ask.com commercials. I don’t believe the commercials were a huge success, just like the others, but clearly, Apostolos was an important part of Ask.com.

Personally, I was a huge fan of Apostolos, as I was of Jim Lanzone, Ask.com’s former CEO.

Related Topics: Ask: Employees

About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here. See more articles by Barry Schwartz