The “new” Ask.com launches, search industry goes ehhh
Ask.com, a distant 4th in the search engine race, launched some anticipated changes to their core search engine. The “new” Ask.com focuses not just on web results but also “structured” data within various categories. The changes are meant to deliver faster and more relevant search engine results, as well as integration of Q&A sites like WikiAnswers and Yahoo Answers for those search queries posted as a question. Interestingly, the new Ask.com also removes the 3 paneled SERP and goes to the standard 2 panel display.
From the ASK.com Blog:
Our goal is to deliver the best answer to you, the first time, every time. We know that is a difficult goal and no search engine can always deliver with that precision 100% of the time, but we think we’re getting closer and closer to the ‘bullseye’. We also believe you will agree once you’ve tried out our new version.
Presenting direct answers to your searches, front and center, has always been at the heart of the Ask.com experience, and we push further down that path today with the introduction of three new answer technologies: DADS, DAFS, and AnswerFarm. These technologies take both structured and unstructured data, and - instead of delivering a title and description for each document - they deliver answers.
Here is an example from the new Ask.com for the search query “What is a good credit score?”
So will this give Ask.com new momentum in the search engine war? Nope. Ask.com is good, like the results, but in the end they will always be behind better / bigger search engines Google, Yahoo and Live.
