Topic: Ask.com

SEO

Nielsen: Google Hits New Search Share High

Another ratings service shows Google hitting an all-time high for search share in the United States. This is according to April 2008 search share stats from Nielsen Online that were released (PDF) today. Last week, Hitwise also reported Google hitting a new record. Microsoft also dips below the 10 percent mark for the first time.

How Search Engines Redirect Users To Country-Specific Sites

Yahoo just started redirecting people in the UK who are trying to reach Yahoo.com instead to its Yahoo UK web site, something that Google has done for a long time. With the change, this seemed a good time to revisit how all the major search engines may intercept people trying to reach their ".com" versions […]

SEO

Ask.com Buying Lexico, Owner Of Dictionary.com

In a move that is interesting and perhaps even surprising for several reasons, IAC/Ask is buying Lexico Publishing Group, which owns and operates “iconic” domains Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com and Reference.com. These sites get most of their traffic through direct navigation and will increase Ask’s reach by 145 million unduplicated users (or 11 percent). Ask is saying […]

SEO

Myanmar Cyclone Maps, Paid Search Ads, & Other Disaster Resources

This past weekend a cyclone hit Myanmar (formerly Burma), killing at least 15,000 with many more missing. It’s a massive tragedy. Now data on the cyclone and its path, from the UN Institute for Training and Research Operational Satellite Applications Programme, are available as a layer in Google Earth. But there are other maps and […]

Microsoft Dips In Compete’s Revised March 08 Search Figures

When I did my Ratings Service Faceoff: Search Share Compared, June 2007 To March 2008 post last week, I noted that Microsoft had an odd increase according to Compete for March 2008. The company now says this was due to Live Search Club traffic that it shouldn’t have counted. Microsoft’s US share for March 2008 […]

SEO

Nielsen: Google Continues High But Others Rise In Share

Continuing from previous search stats from Hitwise, Compete, and comScore, Nielsen Online is now out (PDF file) with search engine share figures in the United States for March 2008. Similar to Hitwise and comScore, Google remains at a high but unlike some of the others, Microsoft and Yahoo come off lows.

The Midwest Earthquake & Search Engine Responses

The Midwest of the US was rocked by an unusual 5.2 earthquake. Looking at Google Trends, which shows popular recent queries, I can see people immediately hit the search engines with queries like illinois earthquake, chicago earthquake, and midwest earthquake. So how did the search engines do? Especially when search engines are supposed to be […]

SEO

IAC To Launch Startups, Take A Demographic Approach To Search

The Wall Street Journal reports that IAC, parent of Ask, is preparing to launch a number of startups after its spin off of some of its traditional media properties. Among the new sites is RushmoreDrive, a niche search engine targeting African Americans. What’s interesting is its demographic approach to search.

Google Suggest Becoming A Default Feature?

I reported at the Search Engine Roundtable about how I spotted a WebmasterWorld thread that has three members noticing Google Suggest like features on Google.com. Basically, when these users go to Google.com and begin typing in a query, Google begins to offer search suggestions. Google has implemented this feature as a default on other non-U.S. […]

PPC

Search Biz: New York Privacy Law May Set National Precedent; AOL Worth Half Of Yahoo?, & Surprise, Google Still #1

A privacy law taking shape in the New York legislature will make it a crime for internet companies to use personal information about consumers for advertising without their consent. And because of the generally boundary-free nature of the internet, it would effectively set a national precedent for companies collecting data about internet use. The New […]

Obit: A West Coast Digerati Deadpools Ask.com

Goodbye, Ask.com. You caught my eye back in 1997 as an unusual meta search engine that asked questions to get answers. By 1998, I counted you alongside Google and Direct Hit as shining examples of what to watch in search. You’d dumped depending on others for search results and started providing answers using your own […]

SEO

IAC Cuts 8% Of Ask.com & Kills Search Engine

IAC’s Ask.com to Cut Staff, Outlines New Search Strategy from the Wall Street Journal reports IAC has cut 8% of Ask.com’s workforce, by letting go 40 people. Not only that, the Wall Street Journal says IAC is changing the strategy of the search engine to “focus to better answering search queries posed as questions.” Ask’s […]

SEO

Ask.com Calls Dumping Teoma Search Technology Rumors False

Last week, IAC Ready To Drop Ask.com Search Technology & Partner With Google? covered rumors that Ask might be dumping its own “Teoma” search technology. Just an hour ago, I received an official statement from Ask.com saying the rumor is false. Nicholas Graham, a spokesperson from Ask.com, told me: I wanted to get back to […]

Google Takes Top Prize At SMX Search Bowl

Last night was the first ever SMX Search Bowl. Basically, the Search Engine Land team created fifty questions that were asked to the various teams. The teams consisted of two players from Google, Yahoo, Ask.com, Live Search, and the SEM All Star team. Danny displayed the questions on the screen and the first team to […]

PPC

Ask.com Adds More Sponsored Ads, Pushing Organic Results Below Fold

I was messing around with the Ask.com interface on my Mac and decided to compare some results between my Mac browser and Internet Explorer for PC. I noticed that Ask.com is now displaying five sponsored results for many keyword searches. The organic results are now below the fold, like they once were before dropping Jeeves.

Survey Says: Google Top Brand In UK

Google takes UK’s top brand spot from the BBC reports Google took the BBC’s top spot in a Superbrands survey of the top brand in the UK. In fact, Google is the only company established after 1990 that is found within the top 50 brands in this survey. Microsoft secured the second position of this […]

Ask.com Binoculars Adds Compete.com Stats

Ask.com has announced that they have added site statistics from Compete.com to the binoculars feature in the search results. Now, instead of just getting a site preview, you also get estimated visitor stats, site rank, a line chart to plot this data over time, and a link to a more detailed report over at Compete.com. […]

SEO

Vertical Search Provider Healthline Beefs Up Content, Features

Health is one of the “strategic consumer verticals” that Microsoft has identified and is an important consumer and advertiser category for all the big search engines and portals (Google is soon to launch Health after delays). There’s also Steve Case’s much-hyped Revolution Health. (WebMD is the category leader according to comScore.) However, one of the […]

MSNbot 1.1: Live Search Implements A More Efficient Crawl

Today, Microsoft announced changes to their Live Search crawler intended to reduce bandwidth resources during the crawl of a site. MSNbot (upgraded to version 1.1) now supports both HTTP compression and conditional get. The post on the Live Search Webmaster Center blog describes each feature in detail and includes links to tools you can use […]

Google: We Didn’t Censor Aboutrika’s Gaza T-Shirt Photo

Google’s Matt Cutts has lent his personal blog to the Google Images search team so they could debunk a rumor that Google censored an image of an Egyptian football player, Mohammad Aboutrika, stripping off his team jersey during the African Cup Of Nations to show a "Sympathize With Gaza" T-shirt underneath. No censoring, says Google […]