Search Marketing Blog



Archive for the ‘Ask.com’ Category


Ask-ing for New Direction

Posted by Sean McMahon on 01.11.2008

Today, DMNews reported that the current CEO at Ask.com, Jim Lanzone, will be stepping down, and be replaced immediately by Jim Safka, the current CEO of Primal Ventures, a new venture firm that identifies business opportunities for Ask.com’s parent company IAC Search and Media.

(more…)

Enhancing the Pursuit of Google

Posted by Sean McMahon on 10.05.2007

As anticipated from an announcement earlier in the month, last week Microsoft launched its major update to Microsoft Live Search. The company is touting that its search engine is “faster and easier to use”. Not to be outdone, both Ask and Yahoo! announced significant improvements to there search engines as well.

(more…)

Google Continues to Dominate Terra Firma

Posted by Sean McMahon on 07.24.2007

At the end of this post, I list the May 2007 market percentages of the largest players in the current online search industry. Once again, Google dramatically increased its lead in our space with an impressive 42.1% year-over-year growth rate in the month of April, to command more than 55% of the total search market.

What’s crazy to think about is, that when I entered our fledgling space back in the late 1990’s, Inktomi (purchased by Yahoo! in late 2002) was the T-Rex of the search engine landscape (with a combined market share of more than 42% at the time), and the now obscure Northern Light and AltaVista were nipping at its heals. Here is a snapshot of the other dinosaurs (and a one little furry creature) from August 1999:

(more…)

Top Engines Move to Improve Search Privacy

Posted by Sean McMahon on 07.23.2007

Interesting article today across the wire from The Associated Press titled “Microsoft,Yahoo become latest to improve Internet search privacy” proclaiming that the search engines are limiting the length of time that they retain potentially sensitive user data.  The article points-out that “the search engines all appear interested in staying a step ahead of regulators as the industry mines personal data to customize online ads tailored for the tastes and interests of each individual visitor.”

Ask.com Adds Autodiscovery Support for XML Sitemaps

Posted by Kent Schnepp on 07.17.2007

Search Engine Land reports that Ask.com is officially implementing support for XML sitemaps. The following is from Ask.com’s Webmaster Help section:

(more…)

Posted in Ask.com / No Comments »

“What is the market for information? Search is a small place of the market to begin with.”

Posted by Sean McMahon on 07.12.2007

This quote was stated today by Sheryl Sandberg, the vice president of global online sales and operations for Google, during a forum with Yahoo!, MSN, and Ask at Fortune’s iMeme tech conference in San Francisco.  As CNNMoney.com also reported today, the four giants of search didn’t always play nicely during this presentation.

Check out “Search Leaders Get Defensive” for a little insight into the competitiveness of our space at the very top.

Ask.com Relaunches with New features and Interface

Posted by Kent Schnepp on 06.05.2007

Ask.com recently relaunched with new features and a redesigned user interface.  The innovative three-panel interface does an excellent job packing the search results page full of relevant results, content, tools and photos. It remains to be seen if the changes will increase Ask.com’s market share.