News19,135 Articles

June 5, 2007

Ask.com tries to take on Google… again

Revamped Ask.com gets three-panel layout

Juan Carlos Perez

Ask.com has today been revamped and enhanced in an attempt to attract more people. Ask.com has spent many years in a largely unsuccessful struggle to boost its market share in the face of rivals Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, but hopes its all-new Ask3D three-panel setup might turn the tide.

Today Ask.com will release what it calls 'major enhancements' to its search algorithms and user interface. Ask.com hopes that these improvements will give its user base a substantial push.

Despite a stream of upgrades and favourable user and industry-expert reviews, Ask.com routinely ranks near the bottom among the five major search engines in the US. A major ad campaign - catchline 'Information Revolution' - is currently underway here in the UK, as Ask.com tries to prise away searchers from the market leader Google.

Google's success has been a source of dismay for Ask.com company officials, who over the years have expressed frustration at a usage market share that they don't believe corresponds with the quality of the Ask.com search engine.

For example, in April, US users entered 5.1 percent of their queries on Ask.com, a virtual tie with the 5 percent attained by Time Warner, which includes AOL LLC, according to comScore.

The closest competitor, Microsoft, more than doubled Ask.com's share with 10.3 percent, while the top two providers are worlds away: Yahoo with almost 27 percent and Google with almost 50 percent.

In total numbers, this means that in April in the US, Ask.com handled 376 million queries to Google's 3.6 billion.

More news: Apple and Google set to enjoy 'mega-growth'

More concerning is that the situation is worse today than in July 2005. Back then, Ask.com's US market share was 6.1 percent. Between then and now, Ask.com, Yahoo, Microsoft and Time Warner have lost share at Google's expense, which had a 36.5 percent share at the time.

However, with the debut of Ask3D on Tuesday, Ask.com expects the tide to turn.

The most visible highlight of Ask3D, which now powers the company's main search site, is a three-panel layout. Suggestions to expand and refine queries appear on the lefthand column and results from specialty engines on the righthand column. The traditional search results list sits in the centre column.

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