Catalyst Search Matters Search Marketing Blog

We’re confident ‘video killed the radio star’ and we have now learned 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 high-level look at couple of the features in Ask & Google and made some comparisons.

Suggested Keyword Phrases
Both Google (in their friendly toolbar) and Ask (in their homepage search box) will offer a user suggestions relating to their search query, which can sometimes be helpful in providing you the search results you really want. The related search terms also give you an idea of how other people are searching. In the early stages Ask’s Search Suggestions seem to be lacking in data. Take, for example, a search for ’seo blog’:

Not all of the results are so bare, but it’s something to definitely keep in mind if you plan on using that functionality.

Image Search
GUS and the new Ask SERP page are giving more real estate to both images and video. As a result, we’re seeing more referrers from these forms of media. Being able to optimize for them is becoming increasingly important. It’s just a hunch, but I think people have learned how to optimize for Google Images. Ask may be following a very different algorithm for images and video. Either that or they haven’t figured out how to “rank” the results yet. Why am I saying this? Check out the different results for the Image search ‘crocs’

It would appear to me some savvy footwear retailers have optimized for the “Crocs” brand footwear images in Google Images, but for some reason those results (with one exception) have not transferred over to Ask Images. Ask seems to focus more on the traditional crocs (you know, the ones which bite your feet off, not the ones who provide exceptional comfort to them). Both sets of results make sense - they just provide different results. I know personally, when I’m doing an image search I usually end up checking Google, Yahoo! and Ask until I find the “perfect” result.

I do, however give kudos (the chocolate and peanut butter kind) to Ask. I really enjoy their option to ‘expand’ or ‘narrow’ your image search results (see the left-hand portion of the Image results page). If you realize this functionality is there I think you will be able to find the results you are looking for.

In this instance it does let you narrow your search to either “crocs footwear”, “crocs sandals” or “crocs clogs” which would give you results similar to Google.

Is the ‘Narrow Your Search’ a work in progress? I think so. I can’t for the life of me think of any correlation between ‘Fastest Car’ and ‘Crocs’ - and I like to think I know a little bit about cars.

Alex, I’ll take ‘Fast Cars’ for 1,000. This car is not only the most expensive production car in the world, but it is also the fastest and most powerful. What is the 2006 Bugatti Veyron?

Another feature I enjoy about Ask’s image search is the ability to narrow the image results down by size, file type and/or color. Fun stuff.

Overall I think Ask is making an admirable attempt to stand out from the other engines and become competitive in the landscape. Will their efforts prove lucrative? Only time will tell. The next in the series about the New Ask.com will be a deeper inspection of the result sets. Now on the New Ask.com: Part 3.