Ask Articles by SEO Speedwagon
September 05, 2007
Boost Visibility With XML Sitemap Submission to Ask.com 
We have been keeping a close eye on Ask.com and are seeing traffic increases from Ask.com for some of our clients. In fact, one e-commerce client over this summer has seen transactions more than double from Ask.com referrers. A 100% increase in transactions - now that really gets our attention!
We've shared with Wagon readers about submitting an XML sitemap to Google, to Yahoo and updated readers about the potential of submitting to MSN this Fall. I thought I would remind readers that you can also submit your XML sitemap to Ask.com and provide some simple how to's.
There are two ways to submit your XML sitemap to Ask.com:
1. Use the auto-discovery directive in your robots.txt file:
SITEMAP: http://www.yoursitemapurl.xml
2. Submit your sitemap via Ask.com's ping URL:
http://submissions.ask.com/ping?sitemap=http://www.yoursitemapurl.xml
Lastly, make sure you're using the accepted sitemaps protocol.
Boost Visibility With XML Sitemap Submission to Ask.com
Posted by doug at 03:44 PM
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September 20, 2006
How Will Ask Profit? Should've Asked the Prophet 
Our own Sean Bolton goes on a rant now and again, and more often than not, he's right.
Last December, he took Ask to task for not being particularly realistic in continuing with its homegrown PPC program. In particular, he had this to say:
Perhaps Mr. Jeeves should ask himself a few questions:
- Does it make sense for me to continue PPC when I can just earn similar or possibly better revenue by just leveraging the existing relationship with Google for AdWords rev?
- Will I do an effective enough job in PPC sales and customer service to some day kill my relationship with Google and keep all the green to myself?
- Why do I have less than 6% market share in the search engine war?
I kept this in mind when reading today's MediaPost article, Diller: Ask.com To Continue Outsourcing Paid Search, which specifically states that back when IAC purchased Ask,
...one of the company's priorities was developing its own paid search platform for advertisers. But Barry Diller said Tuesday that the company has since changed its strategy. Now, he said, IAC is focusing more on drawing consumers to the site than selling its own pay-per-click ads to marketers."Queries will build revenue," Diller said at a Goldman Sachs investor conference. He said the company's goal is to capture 10 percent of search queries--up from around 2 percent on Ask.com now and 5-6 percent considering other offerings.
Sean's above saying he told us so, but I'm not. He told us so.
How Will Ask Profit? Should've Asked the Prophet
Posted by erik at 04:06 PM
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February 27, 2006
Barry Diller Puts His Ask on the Line
Today, Barry Diller gave the keynote address at Search Engine Strategies, which coincided with a new look for Ask.com. The butler's gone, replaced with a toolbox. (Perhaps if he'd had the foresight to unionize...)
The toolbox is a nice way to show the various search capabilities of Ask. As for usability, it's so-so, but better than some. For example (and this applies to every engine), I never know whether I'm supposed to enter my query terms in the main search box then click the correct tab/tool, or whether I'm supposed to click the tab/tool first, then enter the query. I have a niggardly attitude toward unnecessary clicks and keystrokes, so I wish it were more clear. It's frustrating to type a query, click a tab, then have the engine transfer you to the correct search "area" but lose your query terms.
But that pettiness aside, the tools are nice. Clicking various tools brings up unique search parameter fields, such as the unit conversion tool, shown in the next image. (Careful - the Bloglines button doesn't help you search Bloglines; it takes you to the site.)
Who should be afraid of a successful, new Ask.com? Not Google or Yahoo. MSN and AOL have the most to lose if Ask becomes a huge hit, mostly because they're in the same general tier of market share. Losing 2% of the global market share hurts quite a bit more when you have only 5-10% of it in the first place.
But AOL and MSN both have the "portal" advantage - people start and end their days there, checking email, reading news, and so on. So even if it's a better search experience, Ask will need something extra to pull new users over and keep them.
Despite its relatively small market share, Ask is a profitable business unit led by a pretty disciplined management team. It currently enjoys a nice mix, flying under the radar of consumer and governmental scrutiny, but still making serious money. Time will tell if Diller and the Ask will happily trade more of one for more of the other.
Barry Diller Puts His Ask on the Line
Posted by erik at 11:49 PM
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January 18, 2006
New Search Engine Market Share, Popular Search Terms Announced
Via Search Engine Watch, we find that Nielsen//Netratings has just released (PDF) November tallies for search engine market share and most popular search terms, as of November 2005. Without further ado:
| Engine | Share % | Total Searches (x1000) |
| 46.3 | 2,365,998 | |
| Yahoo | 25.4 | 1,194,519 |
| MSN | 11.4 | 583,304 |
| AOL | 6.9 | 350,899 |
| MyWay | 2.5 | 129,555 |
| Ask Jeeves | 2.3 | 119,679 |
| Earthlink | .6 | 32,172 |
| Dogpile | .6 | 31,563 |
| Netscape | .6 | 30,434 |
| iWon | .5 | 27,670 |
source: Nielsen//NetRatings MegaView Search, January 2006
My initial thoughts here are that while the top three engines more or less maintained their share, Google's growing involvement with and potential influence over AOL could do real damage to Y and M and cause fewer and fewer people to believe it's still anyone's game. (And believing may be all it takes, as John suggested on Monday.)
In addition to the search engine market share numbers, N//N also released the top 10 search terms for November:
| Search Term | Total Queries |
| "ebay" | 13,871,000 |
| "google" | 13,301,000 |
| "yahoo" | 7,997,000 |
| "mapquest" | 7,431,000 |
| "yahoo.com" | 6,528,000 |
| "pogo.com" | 4,062,000 |
| "walmart" | 3,688,000 |
| "ask jeeves" | 3,389,000 |
| "msn" | 3,166,000 |
| "ebay.com" | 3,125,000 |
source: Nielsen//NetRatings MegaView Search, January 2006
I guess I shouldn't always be so shocked at the number of people who use the Search box to type full or partial URLs.
Ken Cassar, chief analyst for Nielsen//NetRatings, had an interesting analysis of this segment (my emphasis added):
"There are two types of online searchers that type a Web site’s URL into a search engine rather than into the browser’s address bar: Those inexperienced enough not to appreciate the difference between the two, and those that are so experienced they have become habituated to using the search engine as their portal to the Internet.
Try as I might, I'm not sure I will ever buy the last part of that. It's like saying that I'm pushing my car down the street because I'm too savvy to drive it. I believe that truly savvy users have come to view the browser - not the search engine - as the portal to the Internet.
But Cassar ends with a note we can all live with:
Whether this behavior is driven by ignorance or savvy, the end result is the same: The search engine is the focal point of the online experience for Internet users across the spectrum.
Amen to that.
New Search Engine Market Share, Popular Search Terms Announced
Posted by erik at 03:10 PM
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December 01, 2005
Ask Jeeves Should Ask Himself 
I haven't heard much buzz lately about the recently launched Ask Jeeves PPC program. Why is that? I can only imagine it's because a good majority of marketers just aren't as interested in the hassle of setting up a whole new account in Ask PPC as well as having to track yet another PPC program for ROI analysis, when they can still get Ask PPC traffic via Google AdWords. This question raises some thoughts, no doubt.
Hmmm... perhaps Mr. Jeeves should ask himself a few questions:
- Does it make sense for me to continue PPC when I can just earn similar or possibly better revenue by just leveraging the existing relationship with Google for AdWords rev?
- Do I really need all the additional HR, accounting, sales, etc. headaches from having in-house PPC to keep showing increased black ink in the accounting department?
- Will I do an effective enough job in PPC sales and customer service to some day kill my relationship with Google and keep all the green to myself?
- Why do I have less than 6% market share in the search engine war?
- What!! I have have less than 6% market share!!?
- Do I really stand a chance at winning this thing?...
Best of luck to ya, Jeeves!
Ask Jeeves Should Ask Himself
Posted by sean at 02:00 PM
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