Ask.com: Today’s Google Free Alternative

Today’s the day we’re encouraging people to try Ask.com as part of our Google Free Fridays in July. But why is it happening on a Monday? Because I’m a day behind, as I explained last Friday. Shush, you! What’s that? Why do we hate Google so much to be promoting Google Free Fridays? We don’t, […]

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Today’s the day we’re encouraging people to try Ask.com as part of our Google
Free Fridays in July. But why is it happening on a Monday? Because I’m a day
behind, as I explained
last Friday. Shush, you! What’s that? Why do we hate Google so much to be
promoting Google Free Fridays? We don’t, silly. See my
past post on the
concept. The short story is, understanding alternatives is good, because there
might be something better, or you might want to be reassured you’re already
making the correct choice.

Below, a guide to Ask. Similar to the
AOL search guide I
did our AOL day, there’s some light comparison to Google, not as a definitive
look at strength and weaknesses but instead to give you a feel on how the two
differ.

Web Search

One of the best reasons to consider Ask over Google is that it operates an
entirely different crawler and ranking system than Google uses. This means Ask
will provide a unique and different "voice" than Google has.

A better voice? Sometimes, sometimes not. It’s like asking if one movie
critic is better than another. Sometimes you may agree with one critic’s review,
but another time you might find them wide of the mark. So too, with search
engines. But it’s to the searcher’s advantage to have those many voices, for
when you want alternatives.

Remember, we’ve had studies showing that when you do the same search across
most of the major search engines, they have radically different results.
Dogpile: Search Results
On Major Engines Diverging
covers another one that came out last month. So
been searching your heart out at Google with no luck? It could be taking your
original query over to Ask might have given you an answer directly because of
Ask’s different voice.

By the way, many are aware that the ranking system at Google is called
PageRank. Well, actually, it’s not.
What Is Google PageRank?
A Guide For Searchers & Webmasters
from me covers how PageRank is just one
part of Google’s ranking system. But it’s a catchy name, and one good catchy
name deserves another. So at Ask, they use
ExpertRank.

ExpertRank isn’t just a name. Ask actually does something different than what
the other major search engines do. With the rest (to my understanding, from
having talked to them in the past), they look at all the links from across the
web to determine which are important, then they use those values as part of the
ranking process (this is what Google calls PageRank).

With Ask’s ExpertRank, when you do a search, they examine the linkage
patterns only within the documents that matched the words and concepts you
searched for originally. Then they look at the linkage within this group, as
part of the ranking process. The idea is that they don’t count links from
documents that are off-topic, so they’ll have better results.

That’s the argument. The counter-argument is that it doesn’t matter if you
count all the links from across the web first, as long as you then get
subject-specific through the use of anchor text and on-the-page content
analysis. In addition, I’ve long felt that the big
Google Florida Update
that concerned so many people in 2003 was due to Google doing some analysis only
within retrieved pages similar to Ask.

By the way, ExpertRank was previously known as Teoma — as in the Teoma
technology that Ask acquired as part of getting the Teoma search engine in 2001.
The Teoma search engine was
retired in
February 2006, and the technology was then rebranded ExpertRank. That’s the same
month Ask also retired
its Jeeves mascot and the Jeeves portion of its former name, Ask Jeeves, to
instead become Ask.com.

Finally, don’t get too used to ExpertRank. Later this year, Ask should be
replacing it with its new
Edison technology
(and more here:
Ask.com’s Usability Architect: Exclusive Interview With Michael Ferguson
).

Blended Search: Ask3D

Search at Ask, and you’ll get a dramatic difference when compared to Google
or the other major search engines. Consider a search for one of the scariest
beasts known, the potato bug. OK, maybe one of the scariest things to a kid
growing up in Southern California.

Over at Google, potato
bug
gives you some pictures at the top of the page, then web page results,
then some suggestions that you might also want to search for topics such as the
Jerusalem cricket (it’s real name), along with other popular Southern California
insects like "rolly polly bug" or "stink bug."

The images coming at the top of the page are part of Google’s new Universal
Search (see Google 2.0:
Google Universal Search
), a system designed to automatically blend listings
from the web along with those from specialized search resources from news,
video, local, book and image search databases.

Ask also has a new system of blended search, called Ask3D (see
Ask Relaunches: Now "Ask
3D"
). Whereas you might overlook Google’s blending (where the approach is
more conservative, in part to keep users from being shocked), Ask gets in your
face in a good way with a dramatically different presentation model.

Back to the potato bug
search, this time at Ask. You’ll see the page is
divided into three
panels
or columns. Amazingly for Ask, these panels lack catchy names (the
company, as you’ll see as you read on, gives practically all of its features
unique names. It’s actually useful for identifying them, of course).

The left panel could be called the Query Panel. That’s because it gives you a
search box along with some query refinement options. Perhaps you’d like to drill
into more specific searches such as

History of Potato Bug
or

Colorado Potato Bug
. Perhaps you’d like to expand your search in other
areas, such as

Jerusalem Cricket
. Perhaps there are some related names, such as

Rolly Polly
, that you might want to try. Ask suggests these and more, going
beyond Google in this case and to me, with a nicer, cleaner presentation. By the
way, Ask has a name for this refinement:
Zoom
Related Search
.

The middle column is the largest one and could be called the Results Panel.
That’s because, well, it’s where you see the results. For this query, as with
Google, you get a picture right at the top. However, unlike Google, that’s part
of a neat, clean and impressive
Smart
Answers
box that gives you facts compiled from various resources.

As you look further down, you’ll see web search results similar to what you’d
get at Google. However, there will be little
binocular
icons
(and see
here
) next to many of them. Hover over those with your mouse, and you’ll get
a nice image preview of the site you’re visiting, as well as warnings if
plug-ins like Flash are needed or if the visiting the site will cause pop-up
windows to appear.

Finally, look to the right panel. This could be called the Blending Panel.
That’s because this is where Ask blends results from other search databases it
has, such as news or video. In this case, the column starts by showing image
search results, and you can hover to easily make any of the images that appear
there larger. You then get a dictionary link, and then some links from blog
search results further down.

Exactly what you get in that right panel will vary from search to search.
Morph & In-line
functions: The power behind the panels
from the Ask.com Blog is a recent
post filled with examples of it working well and some of the many databases that
it taps into. For some balance,
London Car Bombs: The
Big Fat Search Failure
from me is a recent post where I felt it could do
better. "Morph," by the way, is the name of Ask’s algorithm used to
pick-and-choose which vertical search results within that third pane. So it’s
really Ask’s Morph versus Google’s Universal Search, when it comes to blending
— while Ask3D is actually the name of the interface. But so far, Ask3D is also
turning into a synonym for Morph.

Ask’s Specialized Search Engines

I’ve covered that Ask’s Morph will make listings from its specialized search
engines (also called vertical search engines) appear in the third blending
panel. But what’s behind those specialized search engines? More on that below
for some of the major ones, as well as how you can reach them directly.

  • Image Search: Just as Ask crawls the
    web for pages, it also crawls to build its own unique image search engine.
    That means it has a unique image search "voice," as opposed to Google. Unlike
    Google, Ask will let you find BMP files in addition to JPG, GIF and PNG.
    Unlike Google, you cannot find grayscale images in addition to narrowing to
    color or black-and-white. But one more plus for ask. Need a "buddy" icon for
    all those social sites out there, such as perhaps our
    Sphinn? Select that option from the drop-down
    boxes at the top of the page, and you get square images in typical buddy icon
    proportions. Here, go be
    Optimus Prime.
     
  • Ask City / Local Search: Back in
    December, Ask City
    Launches Amid High Expectations
    from us covered how Ask City pulls in
    local information from variety of resources that make it one of the top sites
    to consider if you’re seeking local information. It’s especially focused on
    helping you find local businesses, events, movies and maps. I like the
    "Snapshot" icons that appear at the bottom of maps that display listings that
    have been found. Click on those, and you save your map — plus the search
    results. Need an example of a local search at Ask? Here are some

    bars in Newport Beach
    , in case you’re still not over
    Marissa’s death on The OC.
    Note how you can also narrow to neighborhood. That’s nice, though none of the
    neighborhoods listed in this case are Newport Beach neighborhoods (no Balboa,
    no Corona del Mar). Instead, it’s mostly neighborhoods from neighboring
    Huntington Beach that get listed. Another cool feature is the ability to
    simply draw around an area you’re interested in, then search in that area. Ask
    has plenty of screenshots explaining this feature
    here.
     
  • Ask Maps: While maps are part of Ask
    City, you can also go to a dedicated mapping area. Things that are cool? Right
    click to mark a location you see, then right click to mark another location,
    and you can get directions without needing exact addresses. Feel like walking?
    Ask remains the only major search engine that gives you walking directions, to
    the best of my memory. Put your "pin" in the wrong place? Pick it up, move it
    elsewhere, and the directions recalculate.
     
  • Ask News: Yes, you can find news with
    Ask. Ah, but what resources are included? Like Google and Yahoo and others, no
    list is provided. But it is far more than simply tapping into wire services.
     
  • Ask Blog & Feed Search: Yet
    another unique search voice from Ask, this time to search against blog and
    feed content. By default, you do searches against posts, ranked by relevance
    but with a time component added as well, to try and give you the most relevant
    and recent information. You can also sort purely by most recent or by
    popularity, which includes (among several factors) the number of readers to a
    particular blog via Ask-owned Bloglines.
    See a post you like? There’s a drop-down box that lets you subscribe to the
    blog the post is from via several popular services. You can read more about
    the service from Ask
    here.
     
  • Ask Video: Hover over a video,
    and watch it start to quietly play. You also get a video search voice
    different from Google, albeit one that Ask has borrowed, since its video
    search is powered by
    Blinkx
    .
     
  • Ask Shopping: Yet another search
    voice, this time shopping, and borrowed once again. But here, Ask borrows from
    within its IAC family, using the Pronto
    search engine. Read more about Pronto

    here
    from shopping search expert Brian Smith.

Happy searching with Ask today!


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Danny Sullivan
Contributor
Danny Sullivan was a journalist and analyst who covered the digital and search marketing space from 1996 through 2017. He was also a cofounder of Third Door Media, which publishes Search Engine Land and MarTech, and produces the SMX: Search Marketing Expo and MarTech events. He retired from journalism and Third Door Media in June 2017. You can learn more about him on his personal site & blog He can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

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