With the majority of us who follow the search engine industry focusing on Google, Yahoo, and MSN Search, quite often; the “second tier” engines remind us they are still a viable alternative to the big 3. Such is the case with Ask Jeeves.
Ask Jeeves Zooms Towards Answers
Today, Ask Jeeves unveiled upgrades that will certainly increase their usability. Do any of you consider Ask.com to be a viable option? Discuss at WebProWorld.
Today, Ask Jeeves introduced two new search features that go a long way in helping users narrow their search queries in an effort to provide highly relevant results. These two features, Zoom and Web Answers, allow users to refine search queries (Zoom function) and take advantage of Ask’s Smart Search technology (Web Answers).
The Zoom feature gives searchers the ability to narrow their search query (Zoom in) or widen the search (Zoom out) by offering suggestions based on the keyword(s) entered. The function works by suggesting additional searches, related to the original search, which will either narrow or expand the process. An example:
A query for Michael Jordan will yield the normal amount of search results on the left-hand side of the page. On the right side of Ask’s SERP there are a two lists, one inviting you to Narrow Your Search (zooming in), while the other list, Expand Your Search, offers users the option of widening their search parameters (zooming out).
To give an idea of how the Zoom function provides suggestions, the following are the suggestions offered by the Michael Jordan query:
Narrow Your Search
Michael Jordan Biography
Michael Jordan Born
Michael Jordan Shoes
Air Jordan
Michael Jordan Timeline
Childhood Michael Jordan
Gallery Michael Jordan
Michael Jordan History
Expand Your Search
NBA
Chicago Bulls
Shaquille O’neal
Ask credits the capabilities of the Zoom feature to Teoma’s clustering abilities. For those who think Zoom technology is mimicking search technology, Andy Beal offers this, “You may think that Zoom is similar to Google Suggest or other technology, offered by smaller niche search engines such as Vivisimo, but it is clearly beyond current offerings.”
Daniel Read, vice president of product management at Ask Jeeves, offers some thoughts about their narrowing/widening technology, “Zoom brings recommended queries to the user-suggestions that allow searches to be refined, or associated topics explored, with a click of a button. Zoom guides users to exactly what they are looking for fast.”
Not content to offer an effective search refining technology, Ask Jeeves also introduced Web Answers. As mentioned, this feature takes advantage of Ask’s Smart Technology in order to provide answers (in the form of search results) to questions like “Who is the best basketball player“.
Search results that fit the criteria of a Web Answer are labeled as such; however, this is not the only special treatment given to these types of results by Ask. Not only do Web Answer results get labeled, they also receive the top organic listing in the respective SERP. According to their press release, Ask Jeeves reveals the inclusion of the Web Answers label in the search results increased click-thru rates for the top listing by a whopping 200%.
Daniel Read also provided insight about Ask’s other introduction: “Web Answers allows Ask Jeeves to answer far more queries than would be possible using editors or structured databases. By mining unstructured Web data, we can tap the billions of pages in our index for answers.”
These changes mark the beginning of some interesting times for the never-say-die search engine. Yesterday, word came out about Barry Diller considering changing or simplifying the Ask Jeeves name. Most pundits figure it would go from Ask Jeeves to just plain Ask. However, it is quite obvious Ask’s ongoing evolution is not going to be limited to the superficial.
By introducing such effective search technology, Ask Jeeves is certainly positioning itself as a successful player in the search industry. John Battelle seems to support these thoughts by saying, “My take on this is simple: Ask is resurgent, it’s got a strong service, it keeps innovating, and it’s got IAC behind it now. Don’t expect them to stay 25 points behind Yahoo and Google for long.”
Chris Richardson is a search engine writer and editor for Murdok. Visit Murdok for the latest search news.
