Ask.Com's New Look Scores Big Points Against Search Rivals
In college basketball this month, we've all been reminded that the superiority of champions can't be taken for granted. During the NCAA tournament, George Mason University, an obscure team from the suburbs of Washington, D.C., has defeated both the reigning champion, North Carolina, and the team many assumed would win it all this year, Connecticut.
That's also true in high tech. Every so often, an underestimated contender rises up to compete with a champion play for play, or even to beat the champ. Something like that is happening in the search business.
Ask Jeeves, a largely failed search service, has been overhauled and renamed Ask.com. I've been testing the new Ask.com against the search champ, Google. I've found that in terms of relevant results and ease of use, Ask holds its own with Google, and even beats the champ on some searches. It has some very nice features Google lacks, including previews of the sites it finds, an easy way to narrow or broaden your search results, and frequent top-of-the-screen answers that lead you directly to core information.
Walt Mossberg says Ask.com's search results are on par with Google's and its presentation is better.Ask.com is starting from a low ranking. According to a recent study, Ask has only about 6% of the search market, compared with 41% for Google and 29% for Yahoo. Yet, Ask.com is improving fast, and is capable of playing above its ranking.
In its old incarnation, Ask Jeeves, I never could recommend the service. It was cluttered with ads that were too easily confused with real search results and that made the real results hard to find. And it was based on a questionable promise -- that it could answer queries stated as English-language questions. While it did that in some cases, it failed in many others.
This year, the name has been changed and the logo, a cartoon butler named Jeeves, has been axed. The whole question-answering approach is now de-emphasized.
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.
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.
Down the side, where Google ran ads, Ask.com had links to many related topics that could narrow or broaden my search, a feature called Zoom. These suggested topics included the Red Sox, Fenway Park and even Cryonics, a controversial technique for freezing the dead that was used on Williams after he passed away. There were also entries for Ted's rivals, like Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle.
Google and Yahoo have features similar to Ask's Smart Answer, but Ask uses it much more often and with better effect.
Other search engines have tried things similar to Ask's Zoom, but I found Ask's implementation to be better than any other I've tested.
In the search results on my Ted Williams query, Ask listed links that were at least as relevant as Google's. Unlike Google, Ask allowed me to preview most of the links without leaving the search-results page. To use this feature, called Binoculars, I just moused over a small icon of binoculars in each result and a miniature image of the page popped up.
I did many other searches, with roughly similar results. Google usually did a good job, but Ask usually did just as well, and its added features made the results more valuable. In a search for a particular digital camera, Ask's page was topped by a picture of the camera, with links to reviews and price comparisons. Google's page was topped by ads, followed by links to specific shopping sites.
In a search on the word Providence, Google offered a map link at the top, then a link to Providence College. Ask featured a Smart Answer box with the start of an encyclopedia article on the Rhode Island capital, and a drop-down list of links to other cities named Providence and to the TV show of that name.
Ask also allows you to save any entry in its search results to a special page called MyStuff. You can also save pictures, and even upload your browser bookmarks, then organize everything into folders.
Google is still great, and I'm not suggesting everyone abandon it. But Ask.com is well worth a try if you want to benefit from some features that go beyond Google. Like the George Mason basketball team, it just may surprise you.
搜索引擎现黑马
在2006年3月的美国大学篮球联赛(NCAA)中，我们看到冠军的出线往往出人意表。在比赛中，来自华盛顿的黑马乔治马森大学队(George Mason University)击败了卫冕冠军北卡罗莱纳大学队(North Carolina)以及今年的夺标热门康涅狄格大学队(Connecticut)。
在高科技商业领域，此类事情也屡见不鲜。每隔一段时间，都有一家实力被低估的公司起来与行业领先者竞争，甚至击败后者。在互联网搜索领域，这种事情正在发生。
搜索引擎公司Ask Jeeves曾一度失败，重整旗鼓后改名为Ask.com。我将其与行业领先公司Google进行比较，发现就搜索结果和使用便捷程度而言，Ask与Google不相上下，甚至有些搜索结果要好于Google。Ask有一些与众不同的特点，其中包括预览搜索到的网站，便于用户缩小或扩大搜索范围的功能，此外在屏幕上方还有“智能回答”，让用户找到所需的核心信息。
Ask.com的起点很低。最近的一项研究显示，Ask只占有搜索市场约6%的份额，而Google的占有率为41%，雅虎(Yahoo)为29%。不过，Ask.com正在奋起直追，并具有扩大市场份额的能力。
Ask的前身Ask Jeeves令人不敢恭维，网站遍布广告，很容易和搜索结果混淆，用户使用起来很不方便；而且网站给予的服务承诺也不切实际－－它宣称自己可以回答任何以英语提出的问题，但效果却是良莠不齐。
网站于2006年改名，并更换了公司标志，删除了那个名叫吉夫斯(Jeeves)的卡通男管家形像，对回答问题这一卖点也进行了低调处理。
不过，Ask.com大刀阔斧的改革并非只是说说而已。广告量大幅削减，每个页面只有上方和下方各有三个，而且广告为彩底，以便与搜索结果区分开来。搜索页面的右边不像Google那样用来做广告，而是用于协助用户进行精确搜索。
总体而言，Ask的搜索页面要比Google的内容更丰富，结构更有条理，重点放在网站内容而非广告上。
举例而言，我搜索泰德?威廉姆斯(Ted Williams)的名字，他是红袜队(Red Sox)的外野手，也是有史以来击打率最高的球手。在Google，我得到一个简单的搜索页面，最上方是威廉姆斯的官方网站连接，右边是几个和威廉姆斯相关的商品广告。
在Ask.com，搜索页面的最上方是一个“智能回答”(Smart Answer)框，位于广告之上，里面有泰德?威廉姆斯相片，他自传里的一段话，官方网站的连接，百科全书里关于他的一篇文章，以及另外一些他的照片等。
在右边，Ask.com列出了其他相关话题，便于用户扩大或缩小搜索范围，这种功能名叫“缩放”(Zoom)。这些相关话题包括红袜队，芬威公园(Fenway Park)，甚至人体冷冻法，因为威廉姆斯死后使用了人体冷冻法，并引起了广泛争议。此外，还有关于泰德竞争对手的话题，如乔?迪马丘(Joe DiMaggio)和米奇?曼特勒(Mickey Mantle)。
Google和雅虎都有类似Ask“智能回答”的功能，但Ask使用得更频繁，效果也更好。
其他搜索引擎也尝试过类似Ask“缩放”的功能，但我发现Ask的使用效果好于其他测试对象。
在对泰德?威廉姆斯的搜索测试中，Ask所列的链接至少和Google一样具备相关性。和Google不同的是，Ask能让我预览这些网站的页面，而不必离开搜索页面打开另一个窗口。使用这种名叫“望远镜”的功能很简单，只要把鼠标放在每个搜索条目旁边的望远镜图标上，屏幕就会跳出一个相应页面的预览小图像。
我还做了不少其他的搜索测试，得到的结果差不多。通常Google的搜索结果都不错，而Ask做得也很好，同时它的额外功能使搜索结果变得更有利用价值。在搜索一款特定的数码相机时，Ask的搜索页面上有一幅相机照片，以及对该款相机的评论和价格比较链接。Google的搜索页面上方是广告，然后就是相关购物网站的连接。
在搜索单词普罗维登斯（Providence，美国罗得岛州首府)时，Google的页面最上方是一个地图网站的链接，然后是普罗维登斯大学的链接。Ask“智能回答”框中以一篇关于罗得岛州首府的文章开始，然后是一系列以普罗维登斯为名的城市链接，然后是同名电视剧的链接。
Ask还允许用户将搜索过的条目放到一个名叫“我的东东”(MyStuff)的特殊页面，用户可以保存照片，甚至上传浏览器的收藏夹内容，然后以文件夹方式进行管理。
Google依然很棒，我并不是建议大家不去用它。不过，如果你想体会一下Google所没有的搜索乐趣，我建议你尝试一下Ask.com。和乔治马森大学队一样，它说不定能给你带来意外的惊喜。
