Google is #1 in search, but it’s not because of their innovative user interface. You’d have to be a real search geek to see much difference between today’s Google and Alta Vista circa 1997. Enter a search query, see a list of ten results. But Ask.com is ready to try something new. Is it better?
When you first look at the new Ask.com interface, you see this is not your father’s search engine. There are no ads on the right side. The left side offers options to refine your search and the right side offers related information, with the middle columns reserved to familiar-looking search results, paid and organic.
Ask.com promises that the beauty is more than skin deep— each searcher’s search history will drive the search results in a personalized way. New interface, personalized response—it certainly sounds worth checking out, so I did.
My initial take is that the interface seems well-tuned to popular search queries, such a “Paris Hilton” as shown. In addition to the typical celebrity pieces, there are links to new stories and videos similar to the way Google does with OneBox and Universal Search. Ask is more aggressive than Google in showing different kinds of results—my suspicion is that more searchers will find what they are looking for more quickly with Ask.
So what should search marketers do? For now, nothing.
For one thing, it’s not clear how many queries can get the special “Paris Hilton” treatment. Here’s a query for a not exactly unknown term, “social media marketing.” The right column is blank and the left column offers little in the way of refinement options.
But even if Ask can apply this new interface far more broadly, it will take a long time for Ask to pick up momentum. Ask must innovate to grow, yes, but the amount they need to grow to be taken seriously as a major search engine is huge: Consider that they’d need to grow their market share by one-fourth to grow even one percentage point in share, according to Hitwise.
So, keep an eye on Ask—they’ve long been known for innovative approaches. Even if Ask doesn’t pick up market share to sidle up to the big boys, you can expect that their cutting edge ideas will find their way into the user interfaces of the majors if they seem to work.
