Knocking Google off its pedestal as the king of search engines is no small task. But Ask.com is trying, with unusual TV spots that alternate between creepy simians and testimonials recommending you give it a whirl.
Because monkeys always get my attention, I thought I'd give this search engine a go (now that they've ditched the bizarre icon of "Jeeves the butler" as part of their name and logo).
I searched for "Milwaukee" and compared the results with Google's.
Ask.com presented their sponsored listings at the top, which makes sense, since they are search engines' primary source of revenue these days. Google displayed their AdSense results on the right side, separated by a thin gray line. Unlike Google, however, Ask.com didn't clearly differentiate paid listings from real listings, so it's not particularly clear why some site called itfusion633.com is the first listing under the search term of "Milwaukee." Yeah, I figured it out pretty quickly, but if Ask.com is going for maximum usability, they might want to consider explaining what you're looking at. It might also help if the tiny "Sponsored Results" link actually went to a promo page, versus the link of its top sponsor.
In terms of real search results, the two engines performed rather similarly for this basic search term. Ask.com listed, in this order: The City of Milwaukee, Greater Milwaukee Convention and Visitors Bureau, Milwaukee Electric Tool, OnMilwaukee.com, Summerfest, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee Brewers, MetroMilwaukee.org and Milwaukee Bucks.
Google listed, in this order: Greater Milwaukee Wisconsin CVB, Milwaukee Electric Tool, City of Milwaukee, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, OnMilwaukee.com, JSOnline, Milwaukee Portal, THE OFFICIAL SITE OF THE MILWAUKEE BUCKS, Milwaukee Brewers and Milwaukee.com.
As you can see, both of these automated search engines have their shortcoming in determining relevancy. While I like that Ask.com listed OnMilwaukee.com as fourth (whereas Google listed us fifth), I'm always puzzled that Milwaukee Electric Tool ranks higher than UWM and the City's Web site in Google, and higher than the Art Museum in Ask.com.
Because these search engines aren't "human indexed" like Yahoo (or at least how Yahoo used to be), they rely on proprietary algorithms. Back in the day, you could improve your position with meta tags and keywords and power phrases and entry pages and all sorts of little tricks (believe me, we tried them all, and usually were successful). Thanks to the porn sites out there that made their money by tricking users into visiting their unsavory pages, most reputable search engines now all but ignore those tags, instead relying on site popularity, linking and other more dubious methods to determine relevancy. Perhaps that's why a power tool company shows up so high. Kinda weird, but then again, it's not my job to index a bazillion Web sites.
But back to Ask.com's claim that they're reinventing search. It seems to have a few slight advantages to Google: it derives the actual name of the Web site, as opposed to the meta title that Google uses (hence: "Milwaukee Bucks" instead of "THE OFFICIAL SITE OF THE MILWAUKEE BUCKS"). It also features a little binocular icon that lets you see a snapshot of the site you're about to visit. (The snapshot on OnMilwaukee.com is about two weeks old). It lets you narrow or widen your search, presumably based on other users' subsequent search strings. Finally, unlike Google, it has a tab for "Blogs & Feeds," which brings back some pretty useless results (at least for the search term "Milwaukee" where it showed me some "Glass Steel and Stone" site, and eventually an OMC story, which wasn't a blog at all).
In all, Ask.com left me underwhelmed. In their ads, they encourage us to not use Google, just because it's a habit. But with a less robust product overall, not to mention mighty similar features and search results, Ask.com just left me asking, "why?"
Because monkeys always get my attention, I thought I'd give this search engine a go (now that they've ditched the bizarre icon of "Jeeves the butler" as part of their name and logo).
I searched for "Milwaukee" and compared the results with Google's.
Ask.com presented their sponsored listings at the top, which makes sense, since they are search engines' primary source of revenue these days. Google displayed their AdSense results on the right side, separated by a thin gray line. Unlike Google, however, Ask.com didn't clearly differentiate paid listings from real listings, so it's not particularly clear why some site called itfusion633.com is the first listing under the search term of "Milwaukee." Yeah, I figured it out pretty quickly, but if Ask.com is going for maximum usability, they might want to consider explaining what you're looking at. It might also help if the tiny "Sponsored Results" link actually went to a promo page, versus the link of its top sponsor.
In terms of real search results, the two engines performed rather similarly for this basic search term. Ask.com listed, in this order: The City of Milwaukee, Greater Milwaukee Convention and Visitors Bureau, Milwaukee Electric Tool, OnMilwaukee.com, Summerfest, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee Brewers, MetroMilwaukee.org and Milwaukee Bucks.
Google listed, in this order: Greater Milwaukee Wisconsin CVB, Milwaukee Electric Tool, City of Milwaukee, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, OnMilwaukee.com, JSOnline, Milwaukee Portal, THE OFFICIAL SITE OF THE MILWAUKEE BUCKS, Milwaukee Brewers and Milwaukee.com.
As you can see, both of these automated search engines have their shortcoming in determining relevancy. While I like that Ask.com listed OnMilwaukee.com as fourth (whereas Google listed us fifth), I'm always puzzled that Milwaukee Electric Tool ranks higher than UWM and the City's Web site in Google, and higher than the Art Museum in Ask.com.
Because these search engines aren't "human indexed" like Yahoo (or at least how Yahoo used to be), they rely on proprietary algorithms. Back in the day, you could improve your position with meta tags and keywords and power phrases and entry pages and all sorts of little tricks (believe me, we tried them all, and usually were successful). Thanks to the porn sites out there that made their money by tricking users into visiting their unsavory pages, most reputable search engines now all but ignore those tags, instead relying on site popularity, linking and other more dubious methods to determine relevancy. Perhaps that's why a power tool company shows up so high. Kinda weird, but then again, it's not my job to index a bazillion Web sites.
But back to Ask.com's claim that they're reinventing search. It seems to have a few slight advantages to Google: it derives the actual name of the Web site, as opposed to the meta title that Google uses (hence: "Milwaukee Bucks" instead of "THE OFFICIAL SITE OF THE MILWAUKEE BUCKS"). It also features a little binocular icon that lets you see a snapshot of the site you're about to visit. (The snapshot on OnMilwaukee.com is about two weeks old). It lets you narrow or widen your search, presumably based on other users' subsequent search strings. Finally, unlike Google, it has a tab for "Blogs & Feeds," which brings back some pretty useless results (at least for the search term "Milwaukee" where it showed me some "Glass Steel and Stone" site, and eventually an OMC story, which wasn't a blog at all).
In all, Ask.com left me underwhelmed. In their ads, they encourage us to not use Google, just because it's a habit. But with a less robust product overall, not to mention mighty similar features and search results, Ask.com just left me asking, "why?"
Andy is the president, publisher and founder of OnMilwaukee. He returned to Milwaukee in 1996 after living on the East Coast for nine years, where he wrote for The Dallas Morning News Washington Bureau and worked in the White House Office of Communications. He was also Associate Editor of The GW Hatchet, his college newspaper at The George Washington University.
Before launching OnMilwaukee.com in 1998 at age 23, he worked in public relations for two Milwaukee firms, most of the time daydreaming about starting his own publication.
Hobbies include running when he finds the time, fixing the rust on his '75 MGB, mowing the lawn at his cottage in the Northwoods, and making an annual pilgrimage to Phoenix for Brewers Spring Training.
