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Ask.com Unveils Web Search Enhancements

Posted on: Monday, 6 October 2008, 13:30 CDT

Oakland, Calif.-based Ask.com is revamping its Web search engine, enhancing the speed and relevance of its results in a bid to take on rival search giant Google Inc.

The company, which is owned by InterActiveCorp (IAC), unveiled the new improvements on Monday, and believes they can help grow revenue and market share by seizing on distractions of competitors such as Yahoo Inc and Microsoft Corp, No.2 and No.3 in the U.S. Internet search market. The two companies have spent most of the year in acquisition talks.    

"We view this as a 24-month window of opportunity that we can drive a truck through," the company’s CEO, Jim Safka, said in an interview with Reuters.

Safka said his company could lure new customers with a search that is 30 percent faster. Indeed, preliminary tests showed a 16 percent jump in customer return rates to the new Web search page, he said. If Ask can attract new users while simultaneously increasing the rate at which customers return, it will boost advertising revenue, Safka said.

The company, once known as Ask Jeeves, has been working on the improvements since Safka's arrival in January.    

"It wasn't sexy work, but it needed to be done," Safka said.

Most of Ask's revenue is generated through its search advertising partnership with Google, which provides links of relevant advertisers in response to a user's search request. In July, IAC said that Ask's revenue per query increased last quarter due to improvements in Google’s search ad platform.

Yahoo reached a similar agreement with Google in June, which is currently under review by regulators amid opposition from anti-trust groups.

According to data from analyst firm comScore, Google, the leading Internet search service in the United States, grew to more than 63 percent market share in August, followed by Yahoo at 19.6 percent and Microsoft at 8.3 percent. Ask's network of sites, which includes Dictionary.com, moved from fifth to fourth position with a 4.8 percent market share, surpassing Time Warner Inc.

"It's all about growth, this category is growing no matter what the economy is doing," Safka said.

In a recent interview, IAC's chairman and CEO, Barry Diller, said that Google's dominance makes it difficult for Ask to get attention.

"I think, hopefully without deluding myself, it will get easier over the next year, two, three," he said, adding that Google's market share might not have much room for growth. 

Safka said his company’s enhanced search engine would offer improve search relevance by adding structured data feeds to its results, instead of merely bringing in random or unorganized data as most other search engines do. It has increased the number of sites it indexes content from, and the amount of content it receives from those sites, and has adjusted the algorithm it uses to rank search results.

If, for example, a user searches for "What's on TV tonight?" the results will show licensed TV listings for the user's local cable operator based on their IP address.

"We're expanding the depth and breadth of our structured data to bring users serendipitous results," said Safka, adding that it typically takes customers three clicks to find what they are searching for.

"Ask.com's goal is to reduce this to one click of the search box," Safka said.

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On the Net:

• Ask.com
• InterActiveCorp

Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports

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