back to article Google it: Ask.com gives up ghost on search market

Ask.com has quit the internet search biz and is laying off around 130 engineers. It will no longer attempt to compete with Google’s might and will instead fix its efforts on finding answers to questions via search requests. Ask.com, which is owned by IAC/InterActiveCorp, is cutting back its total workforce of about 400 people …

COMMENTS

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  1. Gordon Pryra
    Thumb Down

    Ask have been involved in some desperate stuff

    I've been seeing forum backlink spam coming in from Ask on some blogs I administer.

    Poor show from these lads and I had a soft spot for both them and Excite from the "old days"

  2. John Tserkezis

    Good riddance.

    Now to hope that software developers stop attaching their malware to their products for a few bucks.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ask?

    Is that thing still around? Bring back HotBot ca. 1998, before Lycos got hold of it.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Unhappy

      Title

      Don't you mean before Yahoo got hold of it? HotBot never had their own search system, they were just a front-end for the Inktomi search engine. Inktomi was bought out by Yahoo back in 2002, and for years it powered Yahoo's search results.

      It tells you a lot about Yahoo's management and engineers. They bought out three separate search engine systems over the years: Inktomi, AltaVista, and AllTheWeb. Result: they killed them all.

  4. Nigel Brown
    FAIL

    Ask????

    Bye bye to possibly the most useless search engine since a pin and a copy of Web User.

  5. iamapizza

    "Google too huge to defeat"

    They said that about Microsoft once...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      and they were right

      Other companies had to wait for the transition from PC to other devices to attack and defeat Microsoft.

      1. Charles Calthrop

        re and they were right

        really, does Firefox run on iphones then?

      2. Grease Monkey Silver badge

        Nobody is too big

        Look back through history in all sorts of market sectors and you will see plenty of companies who were considered too big to defeat. Many of those companies are now just also rans, some have been swallowed by competitors and others have disappeared altogether.

  6. Tigra 07
    Happy

    I don't need a title

    Good riddance!

    Won't have to untick those stupid free ask toolbars from installations anymore =]

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ask and Toolbars

    Did Ask.com not own the patent to the page preview thing that Google is subjecting it's users to?

    Also, last time I installed a freeware app it was a Yahoo toolbar that it wanted to pollute my hard drive with.

    They died ages ago, they couldn't decide on a USP, then killed off Jeeves, then brought back Jeeves.

    Bring back altavista.digital.com !

  8. Charles Calthrop
    Thumb Down

    sad news

    Having Search Engines wither because of the position of google diminishes the web. Whether its relevance and retrieval was up to googles or nots, reduced competition and increased market share for google are two things we could well do without.

    Northern Lights was always my favouirte

  9. Owen Carter

    Brand

    The ASK search brand/url must be worth something (negative connotations with toolbars excepted)

    Googles biggest fail at the moment (despite what some might have yout think) is that it's search results are getting worse and worse for any sort of 'hard' search. It's currently only fast for shopping and finding the correct page in Wikipedia or your local council's website..

    But if you have a specific question; maybe a error message you want to research, or need to find a 'howto' for some specific task.. If so prepare for a session since their index is so badly polluted by SEO, aggregation sites, autowritten capture pages and forums full of idjeets that it can take 15 minutes of search refinement for the real info to appear above the chaff..

    I think there's an opening for a SEO -unfriendly- search engine out there.. One that proudly and actively fights the spammers and scammers; and if you want to build it the ASK brand would be a good starting platform.

  10. Zolko Silver badge
    Unhappy

    i *DO* use Ask.com

    actually, I use Ask.com as my default search engine. And that for the past 5 years. It's as good as any other. And they're too small to do significant evil.

    Should I use scroogle ? (.org !!! cos' .com is M$)

    1. T J
      Megaphone

      Opaque namespaces

      I hear ya Zolko, could not agree more, and @Charles Calthrop you too, the G company is just exploiting a failing in an already stupid technology. But the mob follows where the TV says to go.....hmm, which is interesting, considering TV is about to die.

      But I digest. Ask was fine, all the stuff about it being slow an not comprehensive was just spin from G.

  11. Inachu

    YAY!!!!! GOOD BYE ASK!

    Your search results handed me so much infections that I even used a host file to keep your entire network away from my pc.

    It was realyl disturbing when I found freee software also asking me to isntall the ask toolbar which would auto infect my newly installed OS.

    I will not mis ASK at all.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Up

      Title

      So I'm guessing you're perfectly alright with the free software out there that installs the Google, Yahoo, or MSN/Live/Bing/whatever toolbars, then?

  12. QuantRec
    Thumb Up

    Ask.com Employees

    Any people working in technology from Ask.com would be glad to hear from you and be in touch about new opportunities!

    See http://www.QuantRec.com and feel free to email now your current CV (resume).

    Thanks and regards.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Not a good thing

    I just tried to post and as usual it didnt work (but this one will). Anyway, gist was, this is NOT a good thing.

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