Topic: Ask.com

Microsoft Builds A Better Mobile Search Experience

Yesterday Microsoft announced a number of content upgrades and changes to its local search for mobile devices, which include reviews, one-click directions, interactive maps, photos, and so on. There’s more specific detail on the Virtual Earth blog. All the major search engines are now offering blended search results on their mobile-friendly sites. (As an aside, […]

SEO

Who’s Ranking For Knol? Hello, Wikipedia!

Ah, sweet irony. Yesterday I spent some time raising concerns about knowledge aggregation sites like Wikipedia and the forthcoming Google Knol potentially ranking tops for every search conducted. Today, what’s in the top results for Knol? Yep — a new Wikipedia page on the topic! The page was created yesterday and took less than 24 […]

SEO

Should All These Searches Be Forgotten?

The big search engines released end-of-the-year lists that intrigue and entertain. They can also remind us of the fundamentals of search user behavior. Each year when we look back at top searches, we get to see what searchers are up to and measure the strides in human development over the last twelve months. Our curiosity. […]

Google 2D? Google Tests Vertical Results In Right-Hand Column

Ask 3D was the name Ask gave to the “three pane” user interface rolled out earlier this year. Now Google seems to be copying Ask, at least to the second degree, with the right-most column being used to show vertical results similar to how Ask does it. Google Blogoscoped and Valleywag both have pictures of […]

SEO

MapSpammers Getting More Sophisticated

After the first relatively unsophisticated Google MapSpam bulk upload attempt became public, I had a long and interesting conversation with a webmaster who had spent many years implementing a “long tail search” campaign on behalf of local business in a major market. He pointed out that with a little bit of work, a national company […]

PPC

Ask.com Launches AskEraser Giving Searches Ability To Search Anonymously

Ask.com has launched AskEraser, giving searchers the ability to search anonymously. Ask.com told us about this tool back in July, and six months later, it’s now live for all searchers to use. When a searcher activates AskEraser, Ask will stop recording the searcher’s search queries and cookie information. This information includes IP address, User ID, […]

SEO

ACAP Launches, Robots.txt 2.0 For Blocking Search Engines?

After a year of discussions, ACAP — Automated Content Access Protocol — was released today as a sort of robots.txt 2.0 system for telling search engines what they can or can’t include in their listings. However, none of the major search engines support ACAP, and its future remains firmly one of "watch and see." Below, […]

Structure Search Coming To Yahoo

Yahoo to offer structured Web search from Macworld reports Yahoo is going to launch a new structured search component to their web search engine. Web search is typically considered “unstructured,” where there isn’t a real method of comparing sets of results side by side, in a data comparison grid structure. Yahoo hopes to offer structured […]

SEO

Ask.com Plans On China Expansion

IAC Looks to Expand Web Presence in China from the Wall Street Journal reports Ask.com is planning on coming to China within two years. Barry Diller said he plans on spending $100 million to bring Ask.com to China. Diller told the Wall Street Journal, “We’ve certainly got enough capital to do damage,” and admitted there […]

Thanksgiving Search Engine Logos & Off For The Day

Search Engine Land is taking the Thanksgiving holiday off, and best wishes to all those celebrating today. We’ll be back with regular coverage tomorrow. Search engines are celebrating with special logos like those above. See the full-sized versions (including Yahoo’s animated one) and more special search logos in Search Engine Roundtable’s regular roundup, Thanksgiving 2007 […]

SEO

Diller On Ask’s Growth, Facebook, & Buying AOL

Barry Diller to Time Warner: Name Your Price for AOL from AdAge has a Q&A session with Barry Diller, the CEO of IAC, the parent company of Ask.com. Diller was asked about the split up of IAC into five business units, his thoughts on the growth of the Internet, Facebook’s valuation, if he would like […]

SEO

Ask.com Introduces Bloglines Top 1000 List

Bloglines Beta has launched the Bloglines Top 1000 list. Didn’t Bloglines have a top blog list already? Yes, they had a top 200 list, but users wanted to see a larger picture of what feeds people subscribe to, so Bloglines has released an expanded top 1000 list. A formal announcement is planned to go live […]

SEO

Ask.com Teams With Dell To Create Custom Servers That Save Energy

Ask.com has bespoke answer for cutting server power usage from ComputerWorld reports Ask.com has contracted Dell four months ago to build out customized servers around the software applications they have built. This helps Ask.com “cut server power usage by 30%” of a typical server, said Mark Stockford, the senior vice president of operations at the […]

Ask Introduces New Maps & Directions For UK

The mapping upgrades and improvements are coming so fast now from Google, Microsoft, MapQuest, and Yahoo that it’s difficult to keep track of all the changes. Luckily, the Ask Blog walks us through all the features of the new and improved Ask Maps UK, which includes multi-point routing, walking directions (which are claimed to be […]

SEO

Ask.com Helps IAC Earn 40% Increase In Q3 2007 Media Revenue

IAC Reports Q3 Results from CNNMoney reports that IAC saw a 4.2% decline in net income year over year. Here is IAC’s press release for the third-quarter numbers this year. But if you pull out Ask.com, IAC’s search engine, which is part of IAC’s Media & Advertising group, you will see that sector saw an […]

Google, Yahoo, Ask.com Do Halloween Logos & Themes

Google doesn’t always do special logos for every holiday, but in the case of Halloween, it’s pretty consistent. Up today on the Google home page is the ninth consecutive Halloween logo it has run since 1999. Below, a look back at the past years, as well as this year’s animated logo from Yahoo and a […]

StumbleUpon’s Toolbar Adds More Search Engines

StumbleUpon Expands Social Search Across the Web from TechCrunch reports StumbleUpon has expanded their toolbar from enhancing Google, Yahoo, or Windows Live search results to now also include AOL, Ask.com, Google News, Yahoo News, Flickr, Wikipedia, and YouTube. That means, if you use the StumbleUpon and search at YouTube, you will see “SearchReviews” with a […]

Search, Ads And Apps: The Google Q3 2007 Results

Google’s combo of search, ads & apps gave it a very strong Q3. Here’s the top-line from the press release: Google reported revenues of $4.23 billion for the quarter ended September 30, 2007, an increase of 57% compared to the third quarter of 2006 and an increase of 9% compared to the second quarter of […]

Will Google Renew Ad Deal With Ask.com?

Ask.com Ad Pact With Google Ends Soon from CNNMoney.com covers how the deal for Ask.com to carry Google’s paid listings expires at the end of this year and suggests Ask.com has more to lose than Google by not renewing it. Let’s break down some of those numbers from the story:

SEO

Ask Goes For More TV Product Placement

Ask has been trying a range of strategies to gain more consumer attention and usage: the bold Ask 3D redesign, the questionable “algorithm” campaign, and now more TV product placement. AdAdge writes about Ask’s recent TV show integrations, including a new one with Entertainment Tonight: Previous integrations with reality competition series such as NBC’s “Treasure […]

Billboard Showdown: Google 411 Takes On Ask’s Algorithm

I’m in the Bay Area this week, and driving down Lombard Street, I brought the car to a halt when I saw the two billboards above. Yes, that’s one of the Goog411 billboards for Google Voice Search sitting on top of an Ask.com "The Algorithm" one. Sadly, there’s doesn’t seem to be room to squeeze […]