Ask Jeeves drops the butler

Having been in existence for 10 years as Ask Jeeves, the fourth most popular search engine underwent a major rebranding at the end of February by dropping the image and name of ‘Jeeves the butler’. Supported by an extensive advertising campaign, the search engine is now simply called Ask and has relaunched with an extended range of search services.

Ask Jeeves was founded in 1996 and built its reputation as a plain English search engine suitable for users who were not familiar with using search tools. The ‘Jeeves’ butler represented a personal service for users and the image of this search service was built around the iconic image. However, having been acquired by InterActiveCorp in 2001, the strategy has changed and Barry Diller, head of IAC, has justified the removal of the Jeeves name and character as “baggage, that niched or segregated us.” The aim is now to compete with, and take share from, the established search leaders – particularly Google.

Supported by extensive cross-media advertising, the new Ask search engine represents more than just a name and image change as the search tool now offers an improved range and depth of functionality. These advances include a customisable ‘toolbox’ on the right of the search results pages which offers direct access to around 20 different search tools, including an updated image search, maps and local search, weather, dictionary and desktop search.

The main advantage of the new ‘toolbox’ is that it appears next to the search results, giving users the option to narrow-down their search, whereas, on the other search engines the main point of access for these features is above the main search box before proceeding to the search results pages. For most people this requires some forethought as to what type of search would best meet their requirements, whether that might be using the directory, maps, shopping, or academic resources. Often in practice, however, it is the case that a user only decides to narrow their search once they have seen what results appear initially.

Within the standard web search results, a binocular icon appears against most results, which allows users to ‘hover’ their mouse pointer over it and view a thumbnail image of a site before they decide to click on it. This is not a new feature but one that could make a difference as it may help to substantially decrease the time wasted clicking through to sites before deciding to they’re not what you’re looking for. Having said that, users will decide whether the small image tells them enough about the site that they may want to visit.

Ask also claim that the underlying core search functionality has also been upgraded. Their search technology comes from the Teoma search engine, which has now been fully absorbed into Ask and no longer exists as a standalone search tool. The whole look of Ask is cleaner, following the Google model, and ultimately the quality of search results will make a difference.

The reliance on a large number of sponsored listings is being reduced, which is good, although there are no signs yet that the Ask ‘spider’ is becoming more active and this search engine still takes a long time to index new sites or changes to existing ones. However many millions of advertising dollars are put into attracting people to try this new look search tool, the long-term outcome for Ask will depend on their comparison with Google’s quality of results and their ability to change people’s search habits.

If you’d like to know more about the new Ask search engine and how it could impact your search engine marketing activity, please contact us for more details.

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