Behold the new and, in our opinion, improved Ask.com. Now more Web 2.0-er! With all the talk about GUS and it’s impact on search, this quiet little launch might have gone unnoticed, except for that fact that SEO’s notice everything. We’re methodical like that. We took a look at the new interface and the results pages - even the quality of the results themselves - to see if the fancy new Ask was worth its salt or if it would leave us wondering where the hell Jeeves was.
The first thing you notice is the slick “clean style” interface. The palette is very minimalist and even offers some Web 2.0 glossy buttons to change your search stream. Speaking of Web 2.0, most of the changes that you make to the interface happen through an AJAX fade in dialog box, so you never leave the page. (except if you create an account). This is pleasing enough and not as utilitarian as Google, but wait. See that little link for skins?
Booyah. “Timber Brume” skin applied. So far, it looks like you can only use their predefined skins, but it’s still pretty cool. Customization is very Web 2.0.
Next up is the search results. The old Ask results page, which was just a variation of the Google (et al) SERP, is now a 3 column SERP with multiple channel results that’s very reminiscent of A9, but much cleaner.
Click for a full view of the page.
As you can see, the ubiquitous SERP look and feel is not present. The 3 column approach actually appeals to the multi-tasker Web 2.0 part of me. On the left, the search box - normally found dead center - now presides over a column of suggestions that will allow you to expand or narrow your search accordingly. The middle column contains the organic and sponsored results similar to the old Ask (sponsored results on the top and bottom) and is pretty straight forward. However the right column pulls in image search results, an encyclopedia (wikipedia) result, the local weather, and news and music results (Different searches actually load any or all of these options depending on the result set).
Well, that’s part one of our Ask analysis series. So far I like the interface and the result sets, although sometimes the right column fails to load for certain searches (which I’m sure is just a bug that Ask will address soon). I also would like to say Web 2.0 a few more times. Web 2.0, Web 2.0. Web 2.0. There. The next in our this series will be a deeper inspection of the result sets and a comparison with Google results. . Now on to The New Ask.com: Part 2.
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[…] the algorithm killed Jeeves - but where does that leave us with the Ask.com search results? In The New Ask.com: Part 1 Francis discussed the aesthetics of the new interface and SERP pages. In Part 2, I’ve taken a […]