The festive season has kicked off with Thanksgiving, and search engine industry has launched their Thanksgiving logos and themes. Google went ahead and launched its doodle a few days ago. The rest of the engines- Yahoo!, Bing and Ask have also gone live with their logos.

A very happy Thanksgiving to all our readers from PageTraffic!

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Search Engines Bring Out Thanksgiving Logos And Themes!

Happy New Years! I hope you all had a bash at the New Year's eve, and that you are on high spirits with hopes and wishes, looking forward into good things as the year unfolds. Why should not anyone be? Look at the search engines, even the logos and themes there are dressed up in cool new looks.

Some have unique logos for New Year's Eve and New Year's Day and some have the same logo for New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. To prolong the spirit of joy and celebration, below are what search engines have donned. Take a look!

Google has the same logo for both, but changes the landing page based on it being eve or day.

The middle that reads, MMX1, I believe means 2010 + 1.

Yahoo's Static New Years Logo:

Bing's New Years Eve Theme:

Bing's New Years Day Theme:

Ask.com's New Years Eve Theme:

Dogpile:

Baidu's New Years Logo:

So, here's hoping that you find everything you search for this year. Search on, and Happy New Years! once again.

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Logos From Google, Yahoo, Bing & Others for the New Year 2011

OAKLAND, Calif., October 6, 2009 – Ask, a leading search engine and operating business of IAC (Nasdaq: IACI), today announced the launch of Ask Deals, its proprietary database of more than 1 million high-quality savings offers from national and local merchants across hundreds of product categories.

Ask Deals scours the Web for all the deals available online – from cheap Halloween costumes to restaurant coupons – and organizes the best money-saving offers front and center on the results page, eliminating the need for consumers to search multiple coupon sites or search engine links to find their answer. The Ask Deals database is continuously refreshed and editorially refined, giving consumers the most up-to-date and highest-quality savings offers every time they search on Ask.

Ask Deals is powered by Ask’s proprietary Deal Detector™ technology, which uses Ask’s core search technology to scan millions of online promotions, store circulars, and nearly 40 top coupon sites. Ask’s Deal Detector also searches user-generated content on community forums, message boards, and blogs to find popular deals consumers are sharing with each other. Ask surfaces high-quality deals on the results page by using its search technology to filter out low-value, invalid, and expired offers.

“In a tough economy and with the holidays approaching, Ask Deals arrives at just the right time for consumers as a one-stop shop for value. It’s the answer our users are looking for, too, since searches for coupons on Ask.com have shot up almost 50 percent in 2009,” said Scott Garell, President, Ask Networks. “Ask Deals saves consumers time and money through relevant, high-quality savings built right into our unique Ask search results page. By introducing our ‘search stimulus package’ with Ask Deals, we aim to lift a burden for consumers and make a meaningful impact in their lives.”

Unique features of Ask Deals:

• The Web’s best deals – in one place: Ask Deals aggregates more than 1 million high-quality savings offers on the Web for hundreds of product categories and rolls them into one, easy-to-read display.
• Easy-to-find deals, front-and-center: Ask.com saves users time by blending deals into the search results page, making them easy to find via “Smart Answers” with yellow savings arrows at the top of the page, as well as green money-saving icons within the search results.
• Money-saving related searches. Consumers can easily find additional great discounts by clicking on “money saving searches,” built with Ask.com’s award-winning Zoom Related Search™, which appears at the top of the right side of the search results page.
•   Easy sharing. Consumers can share coupons and deals with friends and family through email and popular social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Digg.
• Deal of the Day. When consumers choose an Ask Deals homepage skin, they’ll get daily “can’t miss” savings offers, chosen by the Ask Deals editorial team, streamed right onto their Ask.com homepage. Users can also sign-up for “Deal of the Day” emails to receive new and timely deals every day.

For additional insights into Ask Deals, visit today's blog post on the topic at http://blog.ask.com/. 

*comScore Media Metrix, April 2009

About Ask.com

Ask.com is an operating business of IAC (Nasdaq: IACI). The Ask Network of sites is the 7th largest Internet property in the world, with 179 million worldwide unique monthly users, according to August 2009 comScore data. Ask.com syndicates its search technology and advertising solutions to a network of affiliate partners.

Media Contacts

Nicholas Graham, Ask.com,

Vice President/Spokesperson,

Ask.com nicholas.graham[at]ask.com

571-291-2967

Jennifer Hallett, Ask.com

Jennifer.hallett[at]ask.com

510-985-7640

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Ask.com Announces "Ask Deals" Launch : An Easier Way to Find the Best Deals on the Web

OAKLAND, Calif., September 14, 2009 — Ask.com, a leading search engine and operating business of IAC (Nasdaq: IACI), today announced the launch of its Search for the Cure® program and charitable commitment to Susan G. Komen for the Cure®, the world's largest and most progressive grassroots network of breast cancer survivors and activists fighting to save lives and end breast cancer forever.

The Ask.com Search for the Cure program is a first-of-its-kind donation to Susan G. Komen for the Cure. The initiative makes it easy, educational, and free for consumers to support the fight against breast cancer. Starting today, Ask.com is featuring new homepage themes, called skins, which are designed to educate consumers about breast cancer and inspire support for Susan G. Komen for the Cure. The skins display a weekly series of questions that challenge consumers’ knowledge of breast health and breast cancer issues. From September 13, 2009 through October 31, 2009.  Ask.com will donate 10 cents for select items downloaded and/or activity completed on their site, www.ask.com, with a minimum guaranteed donation of $50,000 up to $100,000.  Consumers can use Ask.com to find answers to the questions, and individual donation tallies are tracked via a display at the top of the homepage.

“The Ask.com Search for the Cure program seeks to empower consumers in the fight against breast cancer through an interactive, educational experience that doesn’t cost them a dime or require much time – which we hope will encourage support of this important cause regardless of financial or schedule constraints,” said Scott Garell, president of Ask Networks. “Susan G. Komen for the Cure has saved millions of lives by funding breast cancer research and education programs globally, and we are honored to join forces with this extraordinary organization of activists and survivors in furthering the search for the cures.”

In addition to the individual donations generated through the Search for the Cure program, Ask has pledged to invest $1 million through December 2010 as part of its commitment to Susan G. Komen for the Cure, which will raise awareness and encourage involvement in finding the cures for breast cancer.

“Susan G. Komen for the Cure offers supporters ways to engage in the breast cancer movement in ways that are easy and meaningful to them,” said Hala Moddelmog, President and CEO of Susan G. Komen for the Cure. Ask.com has created an easy, engaging, and cost-free way for consumers to get involved and generate funding that is crucial to breast cancer research and education. We are thrilled that Ask.com has joined our cause with such an innovative program.

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Ask.com Invites Consumers to Search for the Cure® in the Fight Against Breast Cancer

Antonio Gulli, the technology team lead in Ask.com's European R&D center is leaving Ask.com after serving for four years. At Ask.com, Antonio worked on:

• Image Search
• News and Blog search
• Video News Search
• DailyBeast
• Core Web Search Infrastructure
• RealTime Fresh Web Ranking
• Core Frontend Platform for UK

Here was Antonio's bio prior to joining Ask.com:

'Antonio was the creator of the first Italian Search engine in 1998, Arianna, and he was CEO/CTO of Ideare (sold to Tiscali S.p.a. in 2001) where he created products such as audio, video, and image search. Antonio has recently been working on a PhD in Pisa, researching the areas of Information Retrieval, Web Clustering, and Web Ranking technologies. You can explore his areas of research and play with the applications that he has developed at http://www.di.unipi.it/~gulli/.'

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Antonio Gulli Leaving Ask.com

Ask.com has come up with a positive news that would be great for the search world. It has recently unveiled the proprietary database of 300 million Q&A pairs for the users in the United Kingdom and United States.

Ask.com has used the proprietary core search technology that was launched in the end of 2008 for achieving 300 million high-quality Q&A pairs. The entire work was done by crawling and indexing questions and answers from different sources across the web. Later, the semantic search technology advancements were applied by ask.com in rephrasing, clustering and filtering about insignificant or less meaningful answer formats.

It is made sure that the result in Q&A database is fine-tuned to give the best answer to customers on the very first time. For example, if your question is “How do I change a guitar chord?”, Ask.com will give answers with step-by-step instructions from different authoritative sources. Thus, you will get more options to select from and to get the most relevant answer. The unique Q&A results are also blended in the standard web search results of Ask.com

Scott Kim, EVP of Technology, Ask.com said, “Search industry is heading towards delivering the best answers through semantic search technology and ask is the best place to lead the industry. There are countless answers on net that make it difficult for the consumers to get what they are looking for. Our Q&A channel aims at giving the exact answers to the searchers through an advanced search technology”.

comScore in a research said that visitors enter search queries on Ask.com in the form of question, which is three times more than the queries entered on any other major search engine. It is also said that the user frequency, loyalty and retention is more within Ask.com Q&A channel.

If you will click on the “Lots of Answers” link on the homepage of Ask.com, you will find Q&A pairing database of 300 million. To get more information about Q&A database, visit the blog post of Ask.com

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Ask.com Introduces High Quality 300 Million Q&A Database

Breaking news: Ask.com is not going to renew its contract with Looksmart. This step can be a big blow to Looksmart's revenue. Ask.com listings had generated quite a revenue for Looksmart Publisher solutions, around 89% in Q1 2009 alone.

The partnership which began in 2005 will end in December 2009, with no news of further extension. There had been no announcement or news release from Ask.com in this regard.

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Ask.com not to Renew Contract with Looksmart

It seems Ask.com cannot have enough and be satisfied. The site has been remodeled and redesigned several times within past 4-5 years. Following Microsoft Live search suit ask.com has also started to add live hot spots as part of advertisement stint. From changing its logo to name to skins now Ask.com is using new advertising strategy. Once known as Ask Jeeves it has evolved to use the shorter version ask. Moreover Ask.com had recently restructured its homepage to come up with a clean fresh look as shown below.

This fresh look comes with peel me option to change the 'skin'. It had already converted itself from a question answer generating engine to a full time web search engine. As of now, as part of the advertising campaign, ask.com was seen to put the banner of an upcoming Hollywood film recently. As the mouse scrolled over the the characters, the names showed automatically. Interestingly but the mouse over names will also guide you to more refined ask.com results. This is a very new concept to be adopted by a search engine. While on one hand Microsoft just added large images and Google updated its logo from time to time. Putting up the whole banner on the homepage is a bold move. Some critics though labeled it as a desperate move. But needless to say it is attracting more attention and traffic.

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Ask.com Evolves yet Again, Uses Live Search Methods!

Wall Street Journal recently reported that Ask.com CEO Jim Safka is leaving the firm. It is believed that the decision was based on personal reasons. Jim will most probably become the head of Chegg, Inc., which gives textbooks to students on rent.

Safka took over as the Ask's CEO in the early January 2008, replacing Jim Lanzone. As WSJ points out, Ask's market share has mostly remained flat during Safka's rein, with just under a 4% share of the search market in the US.

In an email to staff, Safka wrote, “This choice was not made lightly … When my brother John passed away unexpectedly less than a month ago, I began re-evaluating my personal and professional priorities and decided it was the right time for me to make a change … And whatever I do next will be smaller and more local, enabling me to have a better personal balance.”

Scott Garell is expected to take over as “President of Ask Networks.”

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Ask.com CEO Jim Safka Steps Down!

Just a few days ago, Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft announced their collaboration to support a new Web standard “Canonical URL Tag” to abolish duplicate content from the Internet world.

Now, Ask.com has announced its intentions to go Canonical! Here is the example of the screen shot of the tag, provided by Ask.com:

“To help meet this challenge, Ask is announcing today that we are joining forces with other major search engines in a timely partnership to support a special search index feature called "canonical URL tag". This feature gives webmasters an opportunity to set a "preferred" name for a page.”

Good to see that everyone is joining their hands for this gentle cause!

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Ask.com Joins The Group- Implements Canonical URL Tag!

Is Ask really serious about search? That's the question that a majority of Ask users are asking these days. Some think that the search engine offers quality search results and others think it is not able to meet most of the expectations on time! The debate seems to be going no where.

But now a new post at the “Ask's official blog” states that Ask is making relevant efforts to improve its search index and efficiency for all its users out there:

“Our engineers were going to have to spend more time on improving efficiency, and less time on new feature development. So we’ve been in the planning stages for moving to new datacenter spaces since 2006, and we’ve executed the move of thousands of systems over the past several months . . .

We’re excited about our new infrastructure position because it supports new and innovative core search technology initiatives, and allows us to continually improve the vital basics such as speed, freshness and relevancy.”

Every one is hoping for the best outcome, at least a better one!

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New Ask Datacenter Enhances Search Capacity

Ask.com recently came up with some advancements to their semantic search technology.

The search engine introduced a couple of new semantic technologies such as DADS(SM) (Direct Answers from Databases), DAFS(SM) (Direct Answers from Search), and AnswerFarm(SM).

“We’re currently trialing our DADS, DAFS, and AnswerFarm technologies with NASCAR-related information, which we chose because the sport generates massive amounts of structured data. And queries about NASCAR continue to grow rapidly – it was one of the most-searched sports on Ask.com in 2008. Our goal is to give consumers answers instantly on the first results page to queries such as 'who is the driver of car #60 in NASCAR?' ” -Ask.com

These advances are made to achieve new heights in the field of web text and ofcourse semantic search in the new year.

"We don't get lost in that traditional what does 'a bat' mean when someone says 'bat.' That's DADS, and we're going to be doing that across a lot more verticals or discrete data sets. Right now, we've done that with our TV and event listings," said Erik Collier, vice president of product management at Ask.com.

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Ask.com Expands Semantic Search Technology

This is the last month of the year and top searches lists have begun to roll out. Yahoo and ask.com, both have revealed the hottest searches for the year as per their search engines.

At Yahoo, entertainment conquered the chart:

1. Britney Spears
2. WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment)
3. Barack Obama
4. Miley Cyrus
5. RuneScape
6. Jessica Alba
7. Naruto
8. Lindsay Lohan
9. Angelina Jolie
10. American Idol

But ask.com’s top 10 list was a little less trivial

1. Dictionary
2. MySpace
3. Google
4. YouTube
5. Facebook
6. Coupons
7. Cars
8. Craigslist
9. Online degrees
10. Credit score

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Yahoo and Ask.com Came Out with Top Ten Searches of 2008!

Ask.com has released version 11 of their new search engine today.

Techmeme is geared up with all the coverage of the news item, along with the main articles currently from the NY Times and News.com.

“We have rebuilt the Ask site from the ground up,” said Mr. Safka, who was earlier the chief executive of Match.com.

“In its latest iteration, Ask.com will deliver results not only from the Web, but also from so-called “structured” sources of data in certain categories like entertainment, health and jobs. The results are intended to deliver faster answers to certain queries,” Mr. Safka said. For instance, a search for “Miley Cyrus” will include TV listings for the series “Hannah Montana” in which she stars.

“The new Ask.com also includes an index of various question-and-answer sites from around the Web, including Yahoo Answers and WikiAnswers, that proves effective at returning results for some queries posed as questions. “Some of the best content is coming from individuals, not necessarily from professional publishers,” Mr. Safka said.

Ask.com president Scott Garrell confirmed that this is the premise that Ask was founded on in 1996 when it was Ask Jeeves, but at that time the answers were hand-crafted. Now they have come up with the creation of by the engine.

"The strategy from a product perspective is to provide the best answer the first time, everytime," Garrell said. "We want to reduce the distance between your query and the answer you want."

If Ask.com can consistently provide direct answers in its search results page, Garrell believes it will grow its user base. It generally takes people 3 to 4 clicks in any search engine to get the desired information, he said.

Behind the scenes, Ask.com's makeover includes an improved ability to extract data from Web pages; to mix in a wider variety of result types like photos, news, images and videos; and to tap a broader pool of data sources for queries about entertainment, jobs, health and reference information.

With this upgrade Ask.com, owned by IAC, is also aiming to recapture the functionality that gave it its prominence during its heyday: the ability for people to type in queries in natural language. Ask.com is bringing this functionality back via a question-and-answer feature that uses semantic search technology to interpret the questions and return relevant answers found on the Web, Garrell said.

I just want to comment that I was expecting this to come. But I personally don't think that Ask.com is in race with Google, Yahoo or Microsoft or even near to them. But it is really amazing to know that it is bringing back the Jeeves approach, again! Hope it works this time!

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Ask.com Releases Version 11 of its Search Engine!

If you are one of the overly concerned and protective parents, who are almost always worried about your child's online experience, then there is a great news for you!

According to Search Engine Watch, Ask.com has relaunched their dedicated children's web portal, known as AskKids.com. The all new revamped AskKids displays suggested searches and images in the sidebars .

Apart from search suggestive feature, AskKids also features hosts of fun activities on the home page itself such as 'School House', 'Movies', 'Games', 'Videos' and 'Images'.

The bottom right hand of the page features a a box with a pen, pencil and highlighter. Children can use this feature to draw directly on the page.

On the home page itself, besides the regular search feature, kids can also use the optional search options of Schoolhouse, Movies, Games, Video, and Images, that are featured on the left side of the page. Clicking on one of the categories brings up even more options along with traditional search results.

However, as per the post, there are some inadequacies with AskKids. These are:

1. "The design theme is built around a traditional school setting. Kids are so much more than school. The background design of notebook paper is not a great way to reach kids, who learn much better through visual and interactive approaches and are far more tech-savvy than traditional, old school (pun fully intended) educational methods.”
2. “The search results have ads taking up a good portion of the space. The same criticism can be made of the Ask.com page. Being user-friendly and not ad friendly almost always wins the day and it would be nice if Ask could figure out a more user-friendly way to make the moolah.”

But even with the above mentioned inadequacies, the home page design for AskKids is a lot better than the previous version of the same.

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Ask Re-launches an Updated AskKids.com- A Dedicated Web Portal for Kids!

Via the Ask's Official Blog, Ask.com has announced that it will now be adding television program listings to its search engine result pages or SERPS.

According to Ask, “Our Ask TV listings uses our patent-pending technology DADS (Direct Answers from Databases) to answer queries and questions from structured data feeds and databases. DADS provides highly accurate answers to queries which are relevant to a given topic. Instead of using traditional keyword search algorithms, our technology can deliver much deeper, more precise search results based on understanding of a query meaning rather than syntactical text matching.

Ask TV answers queries ranging from "when is sports on tv this weekend" or "horror movies tonight" to "lindsay lohan on tv". Covering nearly 10,000 distinct stations and over 100,000 shows, our information is updated daily — and it can be personalized and customized to any location and cable provider in the USA.”

As of now, this service is only available to the users in the United States, still, Ask TV search produces commendable results covering 10,000 television stations and over 100,000 shows.

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Ask.com Introduces TV Listings to Search Results!

Ask.com has announced that, it has entered into a search deal with the online image hosting giant, Photobucket. This deal between Ask and Photobucket includes sponsored listings and other advertisements. This means that from now on, at Photobucket, instead of Google, we will find Ask powering Photobucket's search. However, most of the sponsored lisitngs would still be coming from Google.

Here is the Press Release for the Ask & Photobucket deal:

Ask.com and Photobucket Announce Multi-Year Agreement to Deliver the Best in Search and Photo Sharing on the Web

“OAKLAND, Calif. and SAN FRANCISCO, July 10 — Ask.com (Nasdaq: IACI – News), a leading search engine, and Photobucket, a leading standalone photo and video-sharing site, today announced a multi-year, strategic agreement.

Photobucket is one of the Web's most popular sites, with more than 44 million unique users worldwide* linking billions of personal photos, graphics, slideshows and videos daily to hundreds of thousands of Web sites, including Bebo, Blogger, Craigslist, eBay, Facebook, Friendster, hi5, MySpace, Orkut, Xanga and many others. In addition to linking content, Photobucket users share their personal digital media by email, instant messaging, and mobile devices. Every day, more than 10 million personal photos, graphics and videos are uploaded to Photobucket for sharing with family, friends and the online world. The company actively moderates content to create a safe environment for its users, partners and advertisers. Photobucket has offices in San Francisco, California and Denver, Colorado and is located online at http://www.photobucket.com. For the latest feature announcements and news, please visit the Photobucket blog at http://blog.photobucket.com.”

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Ask and Photobucket Join Hands in a Search Deal!

According to MSN Virtual Earth Blog, Ask.com has let go of their mapping platform and have adopted the Microsoft Virtual Earth as its new mapping platform. Ask.com has integrated MSN Live Earth into Ask Maps, Ask City (search for Businesses, Events and Movies per US City) and their Web Search including the Bird’s Eye view.

As of now, the integration of Microsoft Live Earth in Ask Maps is only available in the United States. Ask.com websites such as, Japan, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and the UK aren't showing this integration as yet. But, the speculations are that, as all these sites are currently running Beta, the integration might take some time.

Ask Map:

Business Search (City):

Smart Answers (Web Search):

Smart Answers-Movies (Web Search):

Bird's Eye View:

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Ask Maps To Use Microsoft Virtual Earth!, Drops Its Mapping Platform

Ask.com has announced. that it has added a direct link to its privacy policy via a "Privacy" link conveniently placed on its homepage, thus, easing the growing concerns of the privacy watchdogs. This would ensure that whosoever wants to know about the company's privacy policy would be able to do so, with the help of the direct link.

Google has been facing some legal concerns from privacy organizations and privacy advocates, as they want Google to establish a direct link to its privacy policy via the homepage.

Here is the Press Release from Ask.com in this regard:

An Open Letter to the Web Community and our Users:

“Several weeks ago, a group of privacy advocates contacted a major company in the search marketplace, requesting some key changes to its website to make weblinks to its privacy policy more accessible and conspicuous. This included placing a "Privacy" link directly on the homepage that would, in one click, serve up the company's privacy policy to the user.

The Ask.com Team “

However, the question here is whether Google, the search industry behemoth, would follow suite and mar its famous 'White Page' with another link!

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Ask.com Adds a Direct Link to its Privacy Policy! Easing the Privacy Watchdogs' Concerns!

Just like the planetary alignment is a rare sight, so is the news of Ask.com updating their search index or algorithm!. Especially after their last update was a year ago. However, several posts have surfaced at Webmasters World reporting, that such an update has indeed taken place. Here are some interesting posts, to make you a believer:

“We have seen large jumps from Ask the last two weeks, most significantly this last Friday. About a 40% increase in traffic since Friday. Ask normally makes up about 8% of SE traffic but has jumped up to 12% to 14%. We are #1 and #2 (we have both at the same time) now for hundreds of longer tail queries where before we were #4 and #5 (that I have tested for).”

When there was a bug in Ask a few months ago, I reported it to them directly, and got a personal, helpful, reply from their main Technical bloke.”

Well as long as the Webmasters are happy and satisfied, there is no point in making a big deal about it. Good work Ask.com!

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SERP Changes in Ask.com. Strange but True!