Ask.com Expands AnswerFarm Q&A Database

Jun 17, 2009 at 1:48pm ET by Matt McGee

Continuing its move from being a traditional search engine to an “answer engine,” Ask today has announced that its “AnswerFarm” database has tripled in size, from 100 million Q&A pairs to 300 million.

Ask says they’ve also improved the quality of the Q&A database content:

“Our semantic search technology advancements in clustering, rephrasing, and answer relevance enable us to determine when we have multiple questions that all semantically mean the same thing, so we can aggregate those Q&A pairs, filter out insignificant and less meaningful answer formats, and thus find the most relevant answers.”

Here’s what the Q&A pairs look like in Ask’s search results:

Ask formally rolled out the Q&A pairs from its AnswerFarm database back in October 2008.

Matt McGee is the Search Engine Land Assignment Editor, and offers search marketing consulting and training to businesses of all sizes. He blogs at Small Business Search Marketing and HyperlocalBlogger.com.

See more articles by Matt McGee >

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