Interview With Ask Jeeves On Search
Mike Grehan has an interview up with Jim Lanzone, senior vice president of search properties at Ask Jeeves and Apostolos Gerasoulis, founder of the Teoma search engine that
powers Ask Jeeves: In conversation with…Jim Lanzone & Apostolos Gerasoulis of Ask Jeeves/Teoma.
Gerasoulis remarks that he feels competing search engine Google is now calculating link values “locally” in the way that Ask Jeeves has long done, that meaning to find all
the pages that match a certain criteria and THEN calculate which are most popular by analyzing links within them.
Ask said similar things after the infamous Google “Florida” update of Nov-Dec. 2003, and my
Speculation On Google Changes article for Search Engine Watch members written back then
explains more about the local ranking idea along with comments from Ask Jeeves.
Want to discuss that more? Our Ask Jeeves’s Apostolos Says Google Doesn’t Use PageRank forum thread
is a place where some are discussing, as is our Google Feb. 2005 Update: Observations About Changes
thread.
Lanzone comments on the heavy number of paid listings some have found at Ask Jeeves and how these don’t show up that way for all searches. Indeed, our recent forum thread
The Little Engine That Could – Part II notes how for Firefox users, Ask Jeeves seems to be deliberately
showing even fewer sponsored links perhaps to please a perceived “techie” audience that might dislike them.
The interview also dives into more about the history of Ask Jeeves and Teoma, plus Ask feeling they’ll maintain the Ask Jeeves brand as well as the other brands they
acquired through the ISH purchase last year (want to discuss that more? See our The Little Engine That
Could – Part II and Ask Jeeves is One Brand – Teoma Who? forum threads).