Ask Challenges Google

If you are like me, you probably do the majority of your Internet searches using the Web's #1 search engine, Google. And there is every reason why you should. It is an excellent search tool. But recently, an older search engine has revamped, remodeled, and renamed itself and deserves your attention.

Ask.com is the newest incarnation of the former AskJeeves.com. But, unless you knew that, you would never know as it looks completely different. Ask.com looks much more like Google while the old AskJeeves.com site was clunky, a little difficult to use and was cluttered with advertisements that were easily mistaken for real search results. It's easy to understand why AskJeeves lost favor among Web users.

Ask.com is a new ballgame. Its design is clean, friendly, and in some ways friendlier and more informative than Google. Using Google, you usually get your search results on the left side of the page with ads running down the right side and a result at the very top of the page that is usually a paid listing on your subject.

Ask.com does is it differently. For instance, I did a search on "Julius Caesar." At the top of the page was a picture of a bust of Caesar and an encyclopedia listing giving you some information about him. On the right side of the page there is additional information and suggested links to help you further narrow or expand your search. There were also names of other people who were in some way connected to Caesar. In this instance, I was given the names of Cleopatra, Brutus, Augustus, and even William Shakespeare, all of whom have some sort of relation to Caesar.

Advertising is limited usually to three ads at the top of the page and three at the bottom. And they have a blue background to clearly distinguish the fact that they are ads. In the case of Caesar, I got no ads at all. As to the all-important search results, in my opinion they are just as good and relevant as Google.

Under each listing is a small icon that looks like a pair of binoculars. If you point your mouse at it, you will see a preview of the linked page. Now here is something I really like...on same line as the binoculars is the actual web link address , and a button that says "save". If you click on this, it will save this particular link to a special section called "MyStuff" so you can easily save the most relevant listings to a single location. Very handy, indeed.

In MyStuff, you can also create folders and move your saved links into it. For instance, I created a folder called Caesar and moved all my saved results into it. You can save up to 1,000 web links for free and they don't clutter up your bookmarks.

If you use Firefox, you can add Ask.com to your list of search engines in the upper right hand corner. Just pull down the list and at the very bottom you will see "Add Engines." Just click on it and when the page comes up, click on Ask.com. I suggest you give Ask.com a test drive and see if you don't like it as much as I do.