Mossberg Gives Ask.com Redesign High Marks
Wall Street Journal columnist Walt Mossberg gives Ask.com high marks for its redesign in its latest column. Ask.com recently rid itself of the Ask Jeeves mascot and went for a more cleaner, simpler look.
But the overhaul has been far more than just marketing. Ads have been cut back to just three at the top and five at the bottom of each page, and they run on a colored background so you know they're not real search results. Instead of running ads down the right side of the page, as Google does, Ask uses that space to help the user refine search results.If you are missing Jeeves you can find some of the things he might be up to here on the Ask for Kids site.
In general, Ask's search-results pages are richer and better organized than typical Google results, and they give greater priority to content over ads.
Here's an example. I searched for Ted Williams, the Red Sox outfielder who was the greatest hitter of all time. In Google, I got a plain results page topped by a link to the official site on Williams, with a few ads down the right side for Williams-related items.
In Ask.com, the top of the page, above the ads, featured a Smart Answer box that included a picture of Ted, an excerpt from a biography, direct links to his official site, an encyclopedia article and other images of him.
Tags: ask | ask-jeeves
Posted on April 10, 2006
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