According to an interview Search Engine Watch's Kevin Newcomb had with Ask spokesperson Nicholas Graham, the search engine is still committed to search and denies allegations that Ask is "dead". In fact, apparently the search community overreacted.
Kevin has more of the interview feedback in his article but these quotes sum up Ask's position nicely:
"The idea that we're going to become a women's site is just plain wrong. We know that a sizable group of our core user base is women, and we know they come to us for a certain kind of search: to get answers, often in areas of reference, health and entertainment," Graham said. ...
"We want to address the answer-seekers, who put things in a search box in certain ways," Graham said. "We think it's smart to identify who our most active users are. It's smart to identify the kind of searches they're looking for, and focus on building that up. We want to be the first place our core customers come when they're looking for answers."
Ask explains their move as a mere focusing of their brand on a strong target market. Now I am not saying this doesn't make sense; perhaps it is "smart" for the bottom line (as Nicholas Graham so proudly put it). But this explanation ignores a few fundamental issues that belie "smart" in the broader sense of the word:
Ask let go of major Ask supporter and icon Gary Price. Gary represented a beacon of hope for Ask and its future as a competitor in mainstream search. By cutting Gary they cut one of the few vital lifelines they had to the search community.
Ask let go of Patrick Crisp, the Director of Public Relations at Ask. Patrick was a fantastic spokesperson for Ask in the SEO and search community; he listened to suggestions and earned my respect by being very candid in his responses. Without Patrick, Ask has lost a very real asset and they must know that; which speaks volumes to their lowered commitment or at the very least to their lacking management team.
Ask has chosen once again to refocus on the Jeeves-style Q&A model. Originally this model was fantastic and frankly I thought it was the only smart branding Ask had but the search company chose to diversify into a broader search market... why abandon this so soon? By once again changing its stripes Ask is beginning to appear like a schizophrenic corner business that keeps changing sign color and name; that hardly inspires trust.
Anyway, I sense way too much spin over at Ask. Perhaps Ask is slightly backpedalling... maybe our collective outcry startled management a bit. Unfortunately I somehow doubt they are going to change their direction at all. Indeed, I think Ask has put the first barbed nails in its own coffin. Ask certainly lost an immense supporter since Lisa Barone gave up on the search engine; I didn't know of a bigger fan in the SEO/SEM industry than Lisa.
All the best to your bottom line InterActiveCorp (IAC). I know that is all that matters in the scheme of corporate intrigue. It is too bad Barry Diller (CEO, IAC - see pic) couldn't have had more faith in ASK's product and its investment in mainstream search. Oh well, at least Ask is focusing on a market that does indeed have a lot of sway in society today. After all Oprah has certainly made a pretty penny on the "middle-American, predominantly female consumers." I just hope Ask will be prepared though when Oprah launches her own competing search engine... it is only a matter of time!
Today the Wall Street Journal broke incredibly sad news... indeed I think it is one of the saddest moments in my SEO career. Ask.com is letting go of 40 employees and conceptually restructuring itself by moving away from mainstream search and focusing on question-related searches for their supposed primary audience "middle-American, predominantly female consumers."
Now this may just seem like yet another change of direction at Ask (they are fans of change) but the fact that Ask maven Gary Price was let go made it clear that Ask is no longer interested in competing with the likes of Google or Microhoo (a popular nod to the impending doom that is Microsoft buying Yahoo).
So what does this mean to you and me? Well first, me ;-) I am feeling mighty upset. I was so upset that I went and took down the painted Ask logo we have in the StepForth office proudly espousing Ask as a favorite search engine... a sad day indeed (see picture).
I along with many of my industry peers had high hopes for Ask. Coincidentally, just last week I took the Director of Public Relations at Ask, Patrick Crisp, aside at SMX West and told him how interested I was in working with Ask to help its profile in anyway possible. I was confident in their platform and told him what I felt was needed to make Ask a far better contender in the search market; a larger database, more frequent indexing, and a face in the industry with a presence similar to Matt Cutts.
So enough about my pain, what will this mean for you? Less choice! Just consider this for a second... when Microsoft buys Yahoo there will only be 2 search engines controlling the majority of the marketplace. Startlingly, I don't even think I know of a single fledgling search engine that has a chance of filling any new void should one appear. Now don't get me wrong, I fully expect something will popup to take advantage of the vacuum that Ask is likely to leave; after all I don't expect Ask's freshly embraced target market will allow it to expand much past it's 4% search share.
One possible contender in the future of search that comes to mind is currently vapor as far as we all know (because it is not even in public Beta yet) but it certainly has brains behind it - that is Cuill (pronounced "Cool"). According to one of the keynotes at SMX West by Louis Monier (Vice President of Products at Cuill, founder of Alta Vista, and past Google employee), Cuill is attempting to change the way we search to provide a far more robust and comprehensive search result. I should qualify that Mr. Monier was careful never to even mention Cuill in his speech but considering his current affiliation it seems obvious that Cuill is meant to provide a new innovative search medium. The speech was a long one with many interesting facets but what stood out was Mr. Monier's heartfelt expression of the inherent inadequacy of 10 listings per search result page; he was right, that is simply not effective anymore with the growth of the Internet what it is.
Prospective contenders aside, Ask's new management has made a decision to give up the fight for mainstream search and I along with many of my colleagues are disheartened; we really had hope for this brilliant underdog. I even wrote an article on how to optimize for Ask.com which I suppose is now bereft of purpose.
Special thanks to Search Engine Land who brought this to my attention and has more info on this debacle.
Today comScore released the search engine rankings for January 2008 and although the leaders of search are still holding strong to their positions Ask.com has experienced 20% growth! By far, ASK has shown the most significant improvement of all search properties. Furthermore when the report included all of the Ask Network the growth still trumped all other networks with 14.7% growth; the network includes other search properties such as MyWebSearch.com, Bloglines.com , etc.
After all was said and done Ask only had 477 million searches in comparison to Google's 6,181, million searches... a substantial difference to put it mildly. That said, it is great to see growth at Ask because I see it as a vastly underrated search engine; it has evolved into a leader of Web 2.0 search. I was so impressed with Ask I determined it was well worth writing an article on How to Optimize for Ask.
Now About those Other Guys In other news, in order of their overall traffic share Google.com increased its search share by 9.4% followed by Yahoo.com's more modest 4.3% growth and Microsoft's Live.com experienced an impressive 10.5% growth.
Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 10:01 AM
Last year Ask launched Ask3d, and with it came the ability to customize your Ask.com interface with a collection of skins. I personally have never customized a search engine interface using skins, but can certainly see the appeal it may bring to some web users.
Since it began allowing skins, Ask has received many requests for the ability to upload custom skins, and now they have included this feature.
Ask's Official Blog has step by step instructions on how to customize your search using skins. I suspect that while this feature will appeal to many existing Ask users, it is probably unlikely to pull users from other engines to increase their market share. Nevertheless, it is nice to see a search engine that actually listens to its users.
Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 2:21 PM
The issues surrounding online privacy have been a hot topic on the web lately, and Ask.com has taken the concern a step further with the introduction of AskEraser.
Ask announced the launch on Tuesday in their official Blog. This new feature added to the Ask site provides control for the searcher over how their search activity data is handled. At any time users have the ability to turn on the service which will result in their search data being removed off the Ask servers within a number of hours. Information removed from their servers will include search terms, clicks, IP addresses, and any user or session IDs.
Using AskEraser could not be any simpler. When visiting Ask.com you will see an "AskEraser" link at the top right corner. Clicking this link will bring up a window explaining the service and provide you with a button to turn it on. Once on, the link at the top right will expand to offer you an on / off toggle.
AskEraser is all part of the move to expand the end user's privacy. While it may be a smart move for Google to follow suit, I suspect this feature is one they may not move towards.
I am not too familiar with the pitfalls of version 1.0 but according to Ask's press release the new system accounts for the US-english vs UK-english language barrier (i.e. an 'exit' on a motorway is considered a 'junction' in the UK). The other improvements included:
Receive driving directions for up to ten different destinations at one time. In other words, plan your driving route for an entire day of errands - pretty cool.
It now includes walking directions.
"Landmark Assistance" is included which, I presume, allows you to find your way to particularly popular points of interest; this would be quite handy on a holiday!
Subway stations are marked for those who wish to get around a little quicker.
Curious about how everything might look in a particular location? Try the satellite view which will give you a decent photo view of the surroundings.
Satellite shots are available for purchase on the fly... odd but okay.
If you search for any UK city within Ask Search you will be presented with a myriad of city details including hot spots, links to maps, tips, etc.
All-in-all I feel I should reiterate that Ask really has the right approach... be the best you can be at your particular niches and you will get noticed. I think Ask is playing the sure and steady approach and I believe that will steadily grab marketshare as long as they don't play any more ridiculous commercials :-P
Here is a great comment that Ask received from what is definitely a winning response to this new version:
Oh yes, I'd like to congratulate you on your maps.
I've never used Ask.com before seriously, aside from just testing out one or two things; but that was until I found your maps had walking directions.
For me, someone who doesn't own a car and travels mostly by foot or public transport, this was a really nice feature - and one that works well.
So congratulations; you've done good with this maps malarky and I'll be using your map service from hereonin.
One thing I would like to see, but this would be a harrowingly long and tedious job, is to see a mapping system that recognises subways and narrow paths. This route suggested by Ask, for example, would be much quicker if you nipped under the subway.
Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 2:03 PM
J.D. Power and Associated rated Dogpile with the highest rank in customer satisfaction among search engines for the second year in a row.
Based on 1,000 points, Dogpile earned a score of 818 this year, up 14 points from 2006. Google fell in second at 794, with Ask filling in the top 3 at 784 points.
Dogpile users report that they are particularly satisfied with the limits placed upon paid advertising within search results.
This study is in its fourth year and looks at overall consumer behavior, experience and satisfaction within a number of search functions.
While Dogpile has a long way to go in the major search engine race, it is nice to see an underdog (no pun intended) holding its own against the major search engines.
Ask’s portion of the search market is a mere 4.3% (src. Hitwise) so it is understandable that optimizing for Ask is a low priority in the eyes of many webmasters. That said, despite the company’s rather infamous advertising campaigns Ask has some incredible and unique features that I believe will slowly but surely steal search share from its more popular brethren. Consequently, it seems appropriate to provide some tips on how to optimize for Ask without sacrificing rankings on the other search engines. To that end the following instructions are supplementary to the recommendations provided in my “How to Optimize for Yahoo” article.
ASK OVERVIEW
Ask differs from the other search engines because it has fully rolled-out universal search. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this term universal search is the integration of results from a variety of sources (i.e. images, video, local information, news, blogs, etc.) into a single results page. Although Google has implemented universal search to some extent Ask is the first search engine to leap head-first into these complex waters and they have done a great job of it. Since universal search is slowly going to be rolled-out across Google, MSN and Yahoo, Ask is a great place to prepare for the competitive world of universal search. The areas I will cover are images, blogs and feeds, local search and mobile.
ASK IMAGE OPTIMIZATION
Just how do you get an image to show up within Ask.com’s universal search results? The key is to remove any doubt of the image’s relevance to the keyword you are trying to achieve rankings for.
Alt tags need to be created and must clearly represent the topic of the picture while utilizing the target keyword.
The content nearby the image should be relevant to the picture and for best results should include the keyword used to describe the picture in the Alt tag.
The filename of the picture should utilize the keyword.
ASK’S LOCAL SEARCH: ASKCITY
AskCity is Ask’s local portal where various maps and locally themed content (such as event news, theatre tickets, etc.) can be readily found. AskCity was launched in December 2006 as a far superior upgrade over Ask Local and it remains a solid leader in the growing and highly competitive local search marketplace. Fortunately having a presence at AskCity only requires that your business is added to their database if it is not already there.
How to Submit Your Business to AskCity
Submit your business information to askcitybusiness@help.ask.com with the subject line “Ask City Feedback – Business”. Ensure the following information is added to the email:
Business name and complete address
Phone number
The category your business best fits
The website URL
A contact person’s email address
According to Ask the turnaround time is no more than 28 days.
Tip! You might notice that your business profile (once it is online) has a rating system attached to it; shown as a five star system. If you wish to influence your rating then I suggest sending your happy customers to CitySearch, Yelp.com, and Insiderpages where these results are drawn from. Once they are there have them find your listing and provide a positive review of your business.
MAXIMIZING VISIBILITY IN ASK BLOGS & FEEDS
Ask is the proud owner of Bloglines which is one of the foremost news aggregation tools on the web and happens to be the database behind Ask Blogs and Feeds. To ensure that your blogs and feeds are included in this system I suggest creating an account at Bloglines and be sure to include your feed within the profile.
In order to have any chance of influencing your position within Ask Blogs and Feeds you need to be aware of a couple things. First, the order of results within Ask’s Blogs and Feeds is determined by a combination of Ask’s ExpertRank algorithm (their intensive search engine algorithm) and Blogline’s vast 12 million plus blog database. Ask uses this combination to create the first order of results which is dictated by relevance; not by date which is the most common first viewing at Ask’s competitors. Consequently, it is important that you pay close attention to the relevance of the keyword density in your title, body and links within each post you write on your blog. By keeping your ideal keyword ranking in mind while writing your posts you will have a better chance of obtaining a ranking based on relevance.
Secondly, aside from ordering results by relevance and date (noted as “most recent”), Ask also offers a sorting by popularity. I can only postulate how this works but it makes good sense that a popularity ranking is derived from a mingling of Ask’s monitoring of the stickiness of certain articles (how long users stayed at an article before returning) and how many times a feed and/or a post is accessed within the multitude of user accounts at Bloglines. Considering these factors it stands to reason that creating a sticky blog post is the clearest and most obvious first requirement. The second requirement would be to get active in the Bloglines community and try to spread the word about your quality blog(s) throughout your community. The more people that add your blog feed to their Bloglines profile and interact with it, the better chance you have of achieving a top spot when results are ordered by popularity.
ABOUT ASK MOBILE
Ask Mobile utilizes ExpertRank and appears to be based on Ask’s standard website database. This may seem odd at first. After all, how can Ask provide mobile users with full size websites? The trick lies in their use of Skweezer technology that squeezes normally unwieldy websites into more digestible one column sites for mobile users. It may seem that there is nothing that can be done then to influence mobile rankings at Ask. Not true, the answer lies within the fact that Ask Mobile is focused on providing local results to cell users while they are on the go. With that in mind it makes sense that you improve your website’s odds of being found by ensuring it has a comprehensive listing in AskCity.
Tip!If locally based results are extremely attractive to you then I also suggest adding your physical address information within the footer of every page so that Ask and other locally focused search engines have a better chance of associating your website with a region.
SITEMAPS ARE CRITICAL
Ask’s spider is the least active of the big 4 search by far. When reviewing client spider reports I see Ask visiting websites 50% less or more than MSN, Yahoo and Google. In fact on many websites that have not yet added a sitemap or have less than ideal site structures Ask often does not even index pages deep within their website(s). As a result, submitting a sitemap to Ask is critical if you want your deep content to be properly indexed.
First create a sitemap. On StepForth’s recommended SEO tools page we noted our favourite tool currently: Vigos Google Sitemap Generator. Download this free utility and have it spider your website. Once it is complete set whatever custom data you want (info is provided within the program) and then generate the sitemap.xml file. Place this file within the root of your website and move to step 2.
To submit your sitemap to Ask you have two options: add a link to the sitemap into your Robots.txt file or simply inject your sitemap.xml address into the following URL and then visit it:
http://submissions.ask.com/ping?sitemap=http%3A//www.the URL of your sitemap here.xml
Of the two options I strongly recommend going the route of adding the sitemap auto discovery link to your robots.txt file because this is now an agreed method of submitting a sitemap amongst the major search engines. Just place the following code on its own line within your robots.txt file:
SITEMAP: http://www.the URL of your sitemap here.xml
USING ASK AS A RESEARCH TOOL
Ask has a helpful resource included in its universal search layout called “narrow your search”. Try typing in your keyphrase in Ask and then take a look at the narrow your search section of the page. There you will see popular searches that are relevant to your keyphrase. Record this information when conducting keyword research because it is a valuable glimpse into what Ask’s ExpertRank algorithm considers closely relevant and it may also show what users are actually searching for.
OTHER INFORMATION
There are a few personality traits that you should be aware of when working with Ask that are quite unique:
Ask does not currently support the “nofollow” tag which could mean that any link leaving your website is considered a vote of confidence for the destination site.
Ask utilizes a site/content preview window for each listing it presents; represented by a binocular icon. Since users may use this tool to get a glimpse of your site before visiting it is more important than ever to ensure the content above the fold (that appears first without scrolling) is enticing to users and relevant to their search.
CONCLUSION
I am solidly impressed by the technology at Ask and its successful foray into the realms of universal search. In fact, my research for this article has moved Ask from a bystander in my set of daily search tools to the forefront. I highly recommend utilizing Ask for your search needs and to keep an eye out for future technology additions to this solid search engine. In my opinion Ask is cutting edge enough that we can expect many search engines will be copying their successful implementations in the future.
Now… if only Ask could get the positive attention it deserves. If I were them I would start by creating a stronger connection with webmasters to interact with them and build awareness. That would be far more effective than the ad campaigns they are currently flooding the airwaves with.
Are you an Ask fan? If so, what do you think they need to do to improve their visibility? Post your thoughts by commenting on this article and perhaps Jim Lanzone and his crew will get a helpful tip or two.
Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 3:35 PM
Roughly 4 percent of all search results display links to potentially dangerous websites, according to a report published by McAfee’s SiteAdvisor, on Monday. The report notes that Yahoo results are the riskiest with AOL leading the pack as having the safest results.
Over the past year, both organic and sponsored links have seen an increase in safety, however, the biggest change is seen within sponsored listings. On average the number of risky links declined from 8.5% in May 2006, to 6.9% in May of this year. Organic results saw a drop from 3.1% down to 2.9%.
The most dangerous offenders tend to be searches resulting in a return of sites in the music and technology field, the adult industry as well as ring tone, work at home, and sites selling free software. These sites are dangerous because they pose security risks including spyware, adware, spam, and other scams.
How can you protect your self? Use your common sense. Never download any software on the web unless you are certain it is from a safe and reputable source. It is possible to download what appears to be a proper version of a piece of software, but once installed it may infect your machine with adware or spyware.
The report from McAfee uses a site which sells free software as an example. The site noted, advertises through PPC for free software such as the Fire Fox browser. When the user goes to download the software, they are presented with a payment option box – why would you need to pay for something that is Free?
Overall the safety of links found within search results continues to become safer, but the risks are still there and should be known. Even though the big engines such as Google are starting to clean up results, sponsored links still have a greater tendency to pose risks over organic listings.
So which engines provide the best results? AOL is the safest with 2.9% risky sites followed by Google at 3.4%, ASK at 3.5%, MSN at 4.2%, and Yahoo way behind at 5.4%. Yahoo is the only search engine which has seen an increase in the number of risky sites since May 2006.
Today the official Ask.com Blog announced details of its local-focused mobile services called Ask Mobile GPS. When I read the offering provided by this 1st generation of local (GPS-driven) mobile service currently only available on specific Sprint phones, I was blown away. The Ask blog posting explains these details more thoroughly but here is a point-by-point rundown of the new offering:
Share My Location: opt to let specific friends know where you are at any given moment... creepy but cool. If a friend wants to meet with you their Sprint phone will provide step by step directions to get to your location.
Directions: navigate to any available location using audible driving (or walking) directions provided in real-time by the GPS enabled phone.
CitySearch: search for specific stores or facilities in your current area. The CitySearch will provide recommendations within a predescribed distance of your location.
EVites: receive and send invites to friends for parties or simply a coffee meeting. You can create, view, cancel or accept EVites easily from your phone. In each case the EVites can provide directions to the event location.
Favorite Places: save shortcuts to your favorite locations for easy access to directions wherever you are.
Being the first to launch this powerful mobile service Ask.com has really put itself ahead of the pack. "At the end of the day, everyone needs to go mobile. But being early in the game can help lock people in for the long term," Ask's CEO, Jim Lanzone aptly stated in an interview with Reuters.
Today I came across a beta viewing of ASK's future layout and platform. I didn't look at it hard so I can't say anything all that super intelligent at the moment but my first impression was so-so (i.e. nothing that blew me away): www.askx.com.
Last week a UK guerrilla marketing campaign launched by ASK was photographed on a train on a London subway featuring ASK's familiar oval logo background shown below the loudspeaker (photo credit Ben Werdmuller). The campaign has raised the ire of a few people and opened the eyes of some others. All-in-all, the campaign has been shown to be one hell of a news-making promotion... which has undoubtedly forced a grin from the staff at ASK. Anyway, here is a little run down on the events to date:
The advertisement is actually rather anonymous, merely suggesting that viewers visit www.information-revolution.org. Once on that site, however, if you look around the page you can ultimately tell it is a ASK website via the logo on the bottom right of the page.
So what the heck is all of this about you might ask? Well ASK is railing against the UK's widespread adoption of the "biggest search engine". The following snippet says it all, without saying Google, of course:
"Did you know that more than 75% of people in the UK use just one search engine to find information? The same search engine. The biggest search engine. The most popular search engine. Why? It's not that there aren't choices, it just seems that most people don't use them."
According to the Information-Revolution blog, the purpose is against "settling for the status quo". Further the March 15th posting states: "Google has a very good search product, and we’re not preaching that people should abandon it. Some people are mistaking this movement as a movement against Google."
Personally, I think the image on the right makes it fairly indisputable that Ask has launched this against Google. This screenshot (right) was taken by Danny Sullivan before ASK removed it from their results (original). This image of a puppet was shown whenever a user typed in "Google" in ASK.co.uk search. To be fair, it is unknown if this occurred on other search engine searches - anyone know the answer to that question? All-in-all, I see no reason why ASK would dispute the intention of their campaign... of course it is against Google and I see nothing wrong with that.
Whatever ASK's reasoning is you can expect to hear and see much more about this 'movement'. According to a recent interview Danny Sullivan had with Jim Lanzone ASK will be launching radio and TV advertisements depicting faux revolutionary takeovers of UK news stations to get out the word on the "information revolution".
Hi Ross. Just came across this today on Bloglines.
Three years later, I'm still against paid inclusion, because I still think it is hypocritical to charge for something we need to do anyway to be the best search service we can be. I also think it's a dis-service to our users to blur the line that much between paid content and editorial content.
"Welcome to capitalism", Jeremy Zawodny once said in a post called "Defending Paid Inclusion." Yes, Yahoo can do what they want, they’re probably not skewing the results, and even if they did, most people probably wouldn't notice or care. Furthermore, since sites are paying a flat fee with the "Basic" version of Yahoo's Paid Inclusion program, there is no incentive in those instances for Yahoo to increase traffic to submitted URLs. (Except, I suppose, to encourage renewals. One can assume you wouldn't renew if you didn't see any traffic from this.)
On the other hand, with Yahoo's "Pro" version of Paid Inclusion, the pricing model is cost-per-click (http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/srchsb/ssp_pr.php). In these cases, Yahoo only makes money if a URL gets traffic. What are the odds that out of 2 million results for a given query, their partner sites will be ranked highly enough, consistently enough, on their own to: a) generate enough traffic for the partner site to make it worth participating in the program; and b) generate enough revenue for Yahoo to make it worth operating the program? I don't know, and I'm not accusing Yahoo of anything. I just know that 75% of the clicks on a major search engine typically go into the top 5 results on the page. It would just be too much of a coincidence if paid (and unmarked) partners got those rankings/clicks instead of non-paying sites.
I'd rather not have anyone wondering if we're gaming it. So Paid Inclusion is just not on the table for Ask.com.
A big thanks to Jim Lanzone for updating his view on this matter. I am happy to see that at least one major search engine representative has publicly spoken his thoughts on Paid Inclusion. I hope to hear from Jeremy Zawodny soon to get his take on my article and Jim's comments.
All the best to your bottom line InterActiveCorp (IAC). I know that is all that matters in the scheme of corporate intrigue. It is too bad 
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Today the Wall Street Journal 
Based on 1,000 points, Dogpile earned a score of 818 this year, up 14 points from 2006. Google fell in second at 794, with Ask filling in the top 3 at 784 points.
Last week a UK guerrilla marketing campaign launched by ASK was photographed on a train on a London subway featuring ASK's familiar oval logo background shown below the loudspeaker (photo credit 
Ask.com's CEO, 