Pocket SEO » Ask.com

Ask.com: Too Many Ads

Josh — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 20:55:16 +0000

I just did a search on Ask.com and got 7 sponsored ads above the search results. At 1024×768 screen resolution, the ads completely push the actual search results below the fold:

All the “results” in the image above are paid ads. The actual search results begin right at the bottom of the screenshot.

Ask.com Sponsored Results – Going Too Far?

Josh — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 03:25:29 +0000

Yesterday when I was searching Ask.com it was showing 10 sponsored results above their organic search results.

Click on the screenshot below for the full view — notice that there are 10 PPC ads above the organic search results:

Also, why is phuket-travel.org #8 for a query for japan hotels? Phuket-travel.org does a meta redirect to world-hotelguide.com.

I previously tried to use Ask.com as my main search engine, but it didn’t last very long…

How Ask.com Could Gain Webmaster Loyalty

Josh — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 00:19:29 +0000

I recently did an experiment where I used Ask.com as my main search engine. While the Ask.com SERPs have the best organization of the major search engines, the actual organic search results from Ask.com are not good.

Because of the less-than-ideal organic search results, webmasters and SEOs don’t take Ask.com seriously. Ask.com doesn’t bring traffic so SEOs don’t even mention it when talking about major search engines. This is bad for Ask.com. Search engines need the active support of webmasters. Webmasters give search engines free coverage and links. Links are (obviously) good for traffic. For example, Yahoo.com pages frequently come up in the Google SERPs.

One way that Ask.com could start getting positive coverage and links from webmasters and SEOs is to offer genuinely useful webmaster tools.

If it weren’t for Yahoo’s SiteExplorer tools I would rarely ever visit Yahoo.com. If it weren’t for MSN Live’s ip: and linkfromdomain: queries I would probably never visit MSN. If Ask.com wants to be mentioned in the same sentence as Google.com, Yahoo.com, and MSN/live.com, they need to offer webmaster tools.

Search engines have a lot of data about the Web because of their constant crawling of the Web. Webmasters want that data but we don’t have the resources to crawl the entire Web on a regular basis.

I don’t know exactly what tools that Ask.com could offer, but MSN’s ip: and linkfromdomain: queries were useful innovations.

Maybe Ask.com could develop a backlink checker that works better than SiteExplorer. How about a backlink checker that would generate a graph of backlinks over time?

Ask.com might be worried about people reverse-engineering the algorithm through webmaster tools, but I doubt that most SEOs would bother. The benefit for Ask.com would be that by providing better webmaster tools than the other search engines, they would gain webmaster loyalty, free media coverage, and free IBLs.

Are there any webmaster tools that you think Ask.com could develop to gain webmaster loyalty?

Ask.com vs. Google

Josh — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 05:56:58 +0000

I had to give up my Ask.com experiment. I tried to use Ask.com as my main search engine, but the search results from Ask.com just weren’t good enough.

Ask.com has a better layout on their SERPs, especially on searches like Greece. Their organic search results are not good though.

I’m disappointed because I would rather use a search engine other than Google.

If I’m looking for country information I will go to Ask.com.

Quick search tips:Â If you have Firefox you can add Ask.com to your browser’s search box.Â Then use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-k to move the cursor to the browser’s search box.Â Hold down the Alt key and press the down arrow.Â You can then select Ask.com.Â Enter your search term.Â To switch back to Google or another search engine you can use the same keyboard shortcuts.Â Also try the Customize Google Firefox extension.Â It adds JavaScript links to the Google results page that let you repeat your query on Yahoo, MSN Live, Ask, Wikipedia, and other sites…

Ask.com vs. Google, Day 2

Josh — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 02:23:41 +0000

After taking a closer look at Ask.com and the great layout of their SERPs, I’ve been experimenting with Ask.com.

I’ve been finding that the quality of organic search results in Ask.com is not great. Whenever I have a technical Web site question–for example searching for a PHP question–I’ve had to occasionally switch back to Google to find the answers.

I just did a search for “movie times in [city] [state]” and the #1 result in Ask.com was a page of text about gay porn that used an embedded Flash movie to redirect to another page that then used JavaScript to send me to Adult Friend Finder.

Reporting Bad Search Results

I wanted to inform Ask.com that there was a problem with their search results, but I couldn’t find a link to let them know that I was unhappy with the search results. Google provides a link at the bottom of their SERPs that says Dissatisfied? Help us improve.

I don’t know if anyone at Google reads most of the comments that come through that form, but they at least pretend to care and it makes it look like they are trying. MSN Search used to have a similar link on their SERPs, but when I just looked for it now I didn’t see it (they are instead directing people to their copy of Yahoo Answers). Yahoo apparently does not have one.
I think Ask.com should add a link at the bottom of their SERPs where users could report bad results. Even if Ask.com doesn’t have time to read them all, it might reduce frustration on the part of some users.

Back to the Movie Showtimes

After that one bad result in Ask.com (which can be forgiven when compared to some of Google’s results like for the keyword Viagra), I did a comparison of how the different search engines display movie showtime listings.

I did a search for movie times in tulsa across four search engines: Ask.com, Google, Yahoo, and MSN Live Search. I chose Tulsa because it’s a large enough city, but not the most common search.

Ask.com Search Results

I marked the screenshot above with three sections:

When searching for movie times, Ask.com shows an input field where you can enter your zip code. Entering your zip code takes you to http://movies.myway.com, which has good information on local movie listings and showtimes.
Ask.com allows you to narrow down your search results, but in this case I didn’t like the suggestions. If I am looking for movie times in tulsa I am probably not interested in reading about Tulsa University or the Tulsa Zoo. I think it would be better if they were recommending movie reviews, or a list of specific movie theatres.
The number one result in Ask.com was not a good result. It’s a site called The-Movie-Times.com that does a meta redirect to another page. The page is about Cameron Diaz. If someone types in movie times in [city] it is unlikely that they are looking for a Web site called The Movie Times. The number two result in Ask.com was AllAboutTulsa.com which resizes your browser window to 800×1000 pixels with the following JavaScript: window.resizeTo(800, 1000). Terrible user experience when clicking on either the #1 or #2 result.

My overall impression of this SERP is that it’s only useful if you use the movie showtimes zip code search box at the top of the Ask.com page.

Google.com Search Results

In this case the Google.com search results are better than Ask’s. Clicking on the main Showtimes for Tulsa, OK took me to a page that was similar to the MyWay.com listings provided by Ask.com, except that Google’s results allowed me to sort by theater distance, movie popularity, movie rating, and movie title.

The #1 and #2 results in Google’s organic results were pages on mrmovietimes.com, which had a list of Tulsa movie theaters. The #3 result was Cinemark.com’s home page, which was not very helpful because it was just one chain of movie theatre. The #4 result was fandango.com which, from a quick glance, seemed the most useful.

Yahoo.com Search Results

This series of posts is mostly about Ask.com and Google.com, but I thought I would include Yahoo and MSN in this comparison.

Yahoo provides a Yahoo Shortcut at the top of their SERP that leads to Yahoo Movies. Yahoo Movies is OK — similar to what Ask.com is providing with MyWay.com.

Yahoo’s organic results had Citisearch at #1 (are they doing paid inclusion?). #2 was urbantulsa.com which just looked like a blank page. #3 was another result from urbantulsa.com (Yahoo, stop doing that) but this page had a difficult-to-read list of movie times.

MSN Live Search Results

MSN Live Search was similar to Google’s and Yahoos. Clicking on the link Movies Near Tulsa, OK took me to the MSN Movies which looked similar to Yahoo’s. In the organic results, MSN Live Search gave me the same bad result as Yahoo — #1 was the nearly blank page from UrbanTulsa.com. The #3 and #4 results were Cinemark.com, but instead of giving me the home page of Cinemark.com like Google did, MSN gave me the Tulsa-specific pages. The #5 result was mrmovietimes.com.

Conclusion of Ask vs. Google, Day 2

Google.com did a better job than Ask or the other search engines in this case. If using the search engines’ own movie listings services the results were similar, though Google’s beat the others because of the way the information could be sorted. Ask.com’s organic results in this case were not good–the #1 result was not relevant and the #2 result resized my main browser window with JavaScript.

[Update: Amy left a comment below telling me about Ask.com City movie listings.Â It's a menu item at Ask City.Â You can do searches like "action movie in zip code 33139".Â See the screenshot below. If they would more closely integrate this with their main search engine I would give Ask extra points.]

Round 1–Ask.com

Round 2–Google.com [Edit: after seeing Ask City's movie listing feature, I make round 2 a tie if Ask.com would make that feature more prominent]

When Ask.com is Better Than Google

Josh — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 19:48:26 +0000

I’ve been looking at Ask.com lately. I think that they have done a clever job with their marketing and decided to take a look at what they are doing. Here are some comparisons between Ask.com’s and Google’s search engines, and an explanation on why Ask.com is providing better SERPs than Google.

There are screenshots of the Ask.com and Google.com SERPs for the keyword japan. The first image is from Ask.com and the second is from Google. To view the images in Firefox, right click on each of them and press the “w” key on your keyboard. That will open the images in new Firefox windows and you can then switch back and forth between the images and the explanations in this blog post with the keyboard shortcut ALT-TAB.

Ask.com Search

Narrow your search down from japan to things like map of japan, facts about japan, japanese culture, foods in japan, or even expand the search to things like Mt. Fuji.
At the top of the page, above the sponsored ads, there is a block that links to comprehensive information about Japan. You can instantly see information like the capital, leaders of the country, population, and have one-click links to Wikipedia, BBC, US government travel information, weather, local time, and tourist attractions.
One problem I have with Ask.com is that the sponsored results are blended into the search results too much. It’s hard to tell where the ads stop and the search engine results begin. This is my main usability complaint with Ask.com.
Images of Japan are well-placed on the top right of the page. The images include maps of Japan, flag of Japan, Mt. Fuji, and what looks like a temple.
The News Images section shows a couple of news articles and related images. Easy to quickly scan and is much better than Google’s awful “Universal Search” which puts Google News results directly in the SERPs.
A clock showing the current time in Tokyo, Japan. The clock updates in real time on the Web page.
Google, pay attention — Ask.com puts Wikipedia in the SERPs, but in the sidebar, not mixed into the SERPs. This is a great feature.
Current weather in Japan. Excellent small touch that makes the page even more useful.
[not marked on the screenshot] If you hover over the binoculars icons you can see thumbnail previews of the Web sites in the organic search results.

Summary of Ask.com’s SERP:

Ask.com did a great job with this SERPs page. I can probably find the information that I am looking for even without looking at the actual organic search results. The Ask.com SERPs are not any worse than Google’s for this search term, and some of the first page results overlap.

Google.com Search

Google puts it extra services as links at the top of the page. There is no preview of images and news like on Ask.com. Google often integrates Google News and Google Local/Maps into the SERPs making the SERPs muddled and confusing.
Instead of putting Wikipedia in the sidebar like Ask.com, Google usually puts Wikipedia near the top of the SERPs. In this case Wikipedia is #1. The Ask.com makes more sense. If Wikipedia is going to be a result for just about every major search term, give the site its own sidebar block.
Google puts the related searches at the bottom. I think Ask has them in a more usable location. Ask.com’s SERPs are made for finding information at a quick glance; Google’s SERPs are not as well designed.
Google puts images of Japan at the bottom of the page in this case. It would make more sense to put the images at the top or in a sidebar like Ask.com.
The one place where I think Google did a better job than Ask.com in this comparison of SERPs is that in Google it’s easier to tell what part of the page is the sponsored ads.

Summary of Google.com’s SERP:

Google’s search engine results page is mediocre in comparison to what Ask.com has done. Google has not even provided better organic search results than Ask.com in this case.

Conclusion of Ask.com vs. Google

I’m going to continue this comparison by setting my default search engine to Ask.com for at least a week. I will follow up soon on the results of my experiment.

This was a brilliant job done by Ask.com on their search engine results page for the keyword Japan.