Recent comScore data found that Web users worldwide conduct over 500 million searches for dictionary, thesaurus and encyclopedia queries each month--up 20% from last year. That high volume of Q&A-style searching provides a window into the motives behind Ask's purchase of Dictionary.com parent company Lexico. The deal is expected to grow Ask Network's user base by 11%, and increase its unique visitor count to over 145 million per month. It also make sense given that about 30% of all searches on Ask currently fall under the reference category.