History
Ask.com was originally known as Ask Jeeves,[8] "Jeeves" being the name of a "gentleman's personal gentleman", or valet, fetching answers to any question asked. The character was named after Jeeves, Bertie Wooster's valet in the fictional works of P. G. Wodehouse.[1]
The original concept of Ask Jeeves was to allow users to get answers to questions in everyday, natural language, and traditional keyword searching. Throughout its history, Ask was particularly well known for its answer functionality on the topics of mathematics, vocabulary, and unit conversion. Authors also contributed general articles about various other topics, similar to an encyclopedia. As other InterActiveCorp publications were gradually connected with the Ask software, articles on thousands of topics became accessible.
Ask Jeeves was launched as a beta version during mid-April 1997 and was initiated completely on June 1, 1997.[8]
On September 18, 2001, Ask Jeeves acquired Teoma for more than $1.5 million.[9]
In July 2005, Ask Jeeves was acquired by IAC.[6][7]
In February 2006, the name "Jeeves" was dropped from Ask Jeeves, and the search engine renamed Ask.[3][6]
On May 16, 2006, Ask implemented a "Binoculars Site Preview" into its search results. On search results pages, the "binoculars" let searchers have a preview of the page they could visit with a mouse-over activating a pop-up screenshot.
On June 5, 2007, Ask.com was redesigned with a 3D appearance.[10]
In December 2007, Ask released the AskEraser feature,[11] allowing users to opt-out from tracking of search queries and IP and cookie values. They also announced they would erase this data after 18 months if the AskEraser option was not set. HTTP cookies must be enabled for AskEraser to function.[12][13]
On July 4, 2008, Ask acquired Lexico Publishing Group, which owns Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com, and Reference.com.[14][15]
In August 2008, Ask initiated the Ask Kids search engine designed for children.[7]
In April 2009, for the UK version of Ask.com, Jeeves was redesigned as a CGI character and the website was named once again Ask Jeeves, though international versions were still just Ask.com.[16] His image remained on the UK website until July 21, 2016, though the Ask Jeeves name would continue to be used until September 21, 2016, when the website was renamed Ask.
On July 26, 2010, Ask.com released a closed-beta Q&A service. The service was released to the public on July 29, 2010.[17] Ask.com initiated its mobile Q&A application for the iPhone during late 2010.[18]
Ask.com reached 100 million global users per month in 2012[19] through its website with more than 2 million downloads of its flagship mobile app in that year.[20] The company has also released additional applications developed from its Q&A experience, including Ask Around[21] in 2011 and PollRoll[22] in 2012.
Search crawler shut-down
In 2010, Ask.com shuttered its in-house web search engine service, which was replaced by a new Ask search engine created by third-party developer.[23]
The restructuring programme included the termination of all development on the Ask.com webcrawler, the outsourcing of most web search operations, and the loss of 130 search engineering jobs. The company cited market headwinds and intense competition from larger rivals, such as Google and Yahoo.[23]
Earlier in the year, Ask had initiated a Q&A community for generating answers from real people as opposed to search algorithms. This new service was then combined with the existing question-and–answer repository, which included an extensive archive of query data. The new database and answer engine improved on the original capabilities of the AskJeeves Q&A functions, generating many more answers.[24]
