Jeeves Returns To Ask Jeeves; Ask.com Still Shuns Him

Try it, go to askjeeves.com, notice how it redirects you to ask.com and then shows you the old Jeeves character. Is Jeeves back? Don’t you remember? Ask.com retired Jeeves back in February of 2006. Now, two and half years later, they are bringing Jeeves back? Is it possible? Last signs of Jeeves showed he was […]

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Try it, go to askjeeves.com, notice how it redirects you to ask.com and then shows you the old Jeeves character.

Ask Jeeves Back?

Is Jeeves back?

Don’t you remember? Ask.com retired Jeeves back in February of 2006. Now, two and half years later, they are bringing Jeeves back? Is it possible?

Last signs of Jeeves showed he was in the adult entertainment business (joking), possibly because Ask.com’s search technology has been looking a bit shaky, to say the least.

All in all, it does indeed seem like Ask.com is going back to 1996 and maybe this just helps us prove it?

I will email Ask.com’s PR team for a comment on this finding and update this post when/if I get an answer.

Hat tip to @leonardholmes for spotting this.

Postscript: An Ask.com spokesperson returned my request and told me the following:

For users who search for Jeeves, or type in the ‘askjeeves.com’ URL, we’re giving them an ‘easter egg’ that shows Jeeves on their homepage. The image disappears once the user exits their browser. It’s a nice surprise for those users who still look for him, and we’ve gotten positive feedback from our users who have experienced it.


About the author

Barry Schwartz
Staff
Barry Schwartz is a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry can be followed on Twitter here.

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