• Search Engine Watch , Thursday, March 6, 2008 1:30 PM

They're not scrapping Teoma for Google's search tech, and they're not turning into a "Q&A-style engine for married women"--but Ask is undergoing some changes, according to spokesperson Nicholas Graham. "We recognize that we can't be all things to all people, so we're focusing on our core group of users. We want to build up the kinds of answers those users are looking for, while at the same time remain a strong search site," Graham said.

Writer Kevin Newcomb says that it's not about targeting one demographic group (i.e. married women), but tweaking the engine's interface and algorithm to make it more relevant to the people who do use it to search. "Ask.com's research shows that searchers looking for answers to questions come to Ask.com three times more often than they go to other search engines." So the engine will make it easier for users to ask questions, possibly adding features like user-generated answers and natural-language search capabilities.

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