Ask.com redesign – is it too late?
Ask is about to unveil a new redesign today (UK users need to wait until the 20th to see it) and is promising improved search technology as well as faster and more relevant results.
Apparently Ask is more often used by people asking questions, for example “where can I buy car insurance” while the typical Google user just searches for “car insurance”.
Cesar Mascaraque, European managing director of Ask, comments:
All cars have four wheels. No-one wants a car with one wheel.
The 20 year-old is never going to use us and, you know what, I don’t care.
The fundamental issue is that for 99% of queries Google works perfectly. There is no way for another search engine to compete especially in the UK. Ask is trying to compete by using TV and newspaper adverts targeting less older, less savvy users who want to ask questions rather than type keywords.
Ask is still seeing good volumes according to the BBC:
But searching on Ask remains relatively healthy. During August 46 million searches were conducted via Ask in the UK which accounts for one in five of all people using a search engine.
Considering Ask has only a 2% market share it’s interesting to see they have a 20% share of the search volume. Do Ask users need to search more to get their answers or are they just looking for more things?
Patrick Altoft is Director of Search at Branded3, a Leeds SEO & Digital Agency specialising in SEO, Web Design, Development & Social Media.
Comments
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There are a lot of changes made, and there are themes available which you can use for the background of ask.com homepage.
Looks good
When will Yahoo, Ask, MS learn that it’s not design, prizees or whatever, it’s the results…
I always found ask an interesting website. Didn’t they just buy the google engine for their results, or are they still running google’s engine? But I guess they have a market exaactly for the people who are asking rather than searching. AND they will probably be there as long as every other search query puts out ask.com for people searching for ask;)
It’s interesting, what with this and the recent news of MSN paying people to use their search engine, are the smaller players in the search market effectively conceeding that they will never compete with Google on the quality of their results?
Didn’t ASK used to be known as “Ask Jeeves”?
By the way…getting an avatar from gravatar was quick, painless, and easy!!! Should have done it a long time ago.
With regard to the title Ask.com redesign – is it too late?, it sort of took me aback for a second but now I get what you’re saying. I have been pondering the same stuff at my blog http://sjamessmith.livejournal.com. I’d honestly love your thoughts on what I talk about. Dee Broyhill