Ask Toolbar

Ask.com (known originally as Ask Jeeves) is an answer engine, e-magazine, and former web search engine, operated by Ask Media Group. It was conceptualized and developed in 1996 by Garrett Gruener and David Warthen (based in Berkeley, California), and implemented a new engine based on a large language model in 2025.

The original software was designed and implemented by Gary Chevsky. Warthen, Chevsky and Justin Grant then lead the GUI development team, leading to the initial launch under the brand name of AskJeeves.com.

In 2006, the "Jeeves" name was discontinued, and the company emphasised the Ask.com web search engine, which had its own webcrawler and algorithm.

In late 2010, faced with insurmountable competition from larger search engines, the company outsourced its web search technology, and revived its function as a question and answer site.

In 2025, Ask Media Group withdrew from the web search engine market entirely after 27 years. Shortly after the search engine was shuttered, the Ask.com Answer Engine was relaunched as a newsbot service, with new article-style answers being produced automatically by a new generative AI engine.

Three venture capital companies, Highland Capital Partners, Institutional Venture Partners, and The RODA Group were early investors.

Ask.com is currently owned and operated by major U.S. media company InterActiveCorp (IAC), which acquired the Ask Media Group in 2005.

History

Ask.com was originally known as Ask Jeeves, "Jeeves" being the name of a "gentleman's personal gentleman", or valet, fetching answers to any question asked. The character was named after Jeeves, Bertie Wooster's valet in the fictional works of P. G. Wodehouse.

The original concept of Ask Jeeves was to allow users to get answers to questions in everyday, natural language, and traditional keyword searching. Throughout its history, Ask was particularly well known for its answer functionality on the topics of mathematics, vocabulary, and unit conversion. Authors also contributed general articles about various other topics, similar to an encyclopedia. As other InterActiveCorp publications were gradually connected with the Ask software, articles on thousands of topics became accessible.

Ask Jeeves was initiated as a beta version during mid-April 1997 and was initiated completely on June 1, 1997.

On September 18, 2001, Ask Jeeves acquired Teoma for more than $1.5 million.

In July 2005, Ask Jeeves was acquired by IAC.

In February 2006, the name "Jeeves" was eliminated from Ask Jeeves, and the search engine renamed Ask.

On May 16, 2006, Ask implemented a "Binoculars Site Preview" into its search results. On search results pages, the "binoculars" let searchers have a preview of the page they could visit with a mouse-over activating a pop-up screenshot.

On June 5, 2007, Ask.com was redesigned with a 3D appearance.

In December 2007, Ask released the AskEraser feature, allowing users to opt-out from tracking of search queries and IP and cookie values. They also announced they would erase this data after 18 months if the AskEraser option was not set. HTTP cookies must be enabled for AskEraser to function.

On July 4, 2008, Ask acquired Lexico Publishing Group, which owns Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com, and Reference.com.

In August 2008, Ask initiated the Ask Kids search engine designed for children.

In April 2009, for the UK version of Ask.com, Jeeves was redesigned as a CGI character and the website was named once again Ask Jeeves, though international versions were still just Ask.com. His image remained on the UK website until July 21, 2016, though the Ask Jeeves name would continue to be used until September 21, 2016, when the website was renamed Ask.

On July 26, 2010, Ask.com released a closed-beta Q&A service. The service was released to the public on July 29, 2010. Ask.com initiated its mobile Q&A application for the iPhone during late 2010.

Ask.com reached 100 million global users per month in 2012 through its website with more than 2 million downloads of its flagship mobile app in that year. The company has also released additional applications developed from its Q&A experience, including Ask Around in 2011 and PollRoll in 2012.

Search crawler shut-down

In 2010, Ask.com shuttered its in-house web search engine service, which was replaced by a new Ask search engine created by third-party developer.

The restructuring programme included the termination of all development on the Ask.com webcrawler, the outsourcing of most web search operations, and the loss of 130 search engineering jobs. The company cited market headwinds and intense competition from larger rivals, such as Google and Yahoo.

Earlier in the year, Ask had initiated a Q&A community for generating answers from real people as opposed to search algorithms. This new service was then combined with the existing question-and–answer repository, which included an extensive archive of query data. The new database and answer engine improved on the original capabilities of the AskJeeves Q&A functions, generating many more answers.

Ask Sponsored Listings

Ask Sponsored Listings, formerly the direct-sales division for Ask.com, is no longer available, having merged with Sendori, an operating business of IAC, in 2011.

Search engine shutdown and pivot to artificial intelligence

In April 2025, Ask.com exited the web search engine market after 27 years. This included the shutdown of the web search engine service on the Norton SafeSearch web portal (a joint venture with Gen Digital, that included anti-virus features integrated with the Ask web search engine). Users of Ask.com Search and Norton SafeSearch were thereafter limited to search results from a database of articles published on Ask Media Group mastheads prior to Q4 2022. The changes were abruptly rolled out, with no written notice of the changes appearing on either website. The Ask.com technical support department, which previously assisted users affected by faults on the Ask service, also ceased operations at this time.

In May 2025, Ask Media Group made radical changes to the company's business model, with the rollout of new core software that provides all content via a large language model system of generative artificial intelligence.. Large quantities of new, unsigned articles are regularly published on the Ask service, all of which are generated automatically by the core software. The A.I. engine also dynamically rewrites old articles that were written by former Ask journalists, with thousands of articles being automatically updated every month.

No major technology publication reported on these drastic changes at the time. It is unclear if Ask Media Group attempted to send press releases informing journalists of the new business model.

Ask.com currently does not offer a chatbot service. Ask Jeeves co-founder Garrett Gruener stated in an interview that Amazon Alexa "essentially sesthe same approach we designed for Jeeves, just with voice", and that the current A.I. based model of Microsoft Bing is very similar to the original Ask Jeeves concept.

Memes Apps, LLC, an unrelated North Hollywood software company, operates a chatbot-based service called Jeeves.AI, which uses the slogan "Ask Jeeves anything". The software uses an interface built around a ChatGPT model. At present it is unclear if the service is violating the trademarks of Ask Media Group.

Corporate details

The Ask Media Group corporate headquarters is located in downtown Oakland, California, based at the 555 City Center building within the Oakland City Center precinct.

Ask Jeeves, Inc. stock traded on the NASDAQ stock exchange from July 1999 to July 2005, using the ticker symbol ASKJ. In July 2005, the ASKJ ticker was retired upon the acquisition by IAC, valued at US$1.85 billion.

The current Ask Media Group president, Douglas Leeds became CEO in 2010.

In 2012, Ask.com made two acquisitions as part of a larger strategy to offer more content on the Ask.com website. On July 2, 2012, Ask.com purchased content discovery start-up nRelate for an undisclosed amount. That was followed by the company's acquisition of expert advice and information site About.com, which closed in September 2012.

On August 14, 2014, Ask.com acquired popular social networking website Ask.fm, where users can ask other users questions, with the option of anonymity. As of August 14, 2014, Ask.fm had 180 million monthly unique users in more than 150 countries, with its largest user base in the United States. Available on the web and as a mobile app, Ask.fm generates an estimated 20,000 questions per minute with approximately 45 percent of its mobile monthly active users logging in daily. , the mobile app has been downloaded more than 40 million times.

In 2021, Ask re-initiated its function ''SymptomFind'' and introduced the new finance-based site ''Ask Money''.

Marketing and promotion

From November 1999, in some areas Ask Jeeves advertised on produce stickers on apples, oranges and bananas. Questions such as "How many calories in a banana?" were printed alongside the Ask Jeeves web address.

A Jeeves balloon and a float appeared in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade during 2000–2004.

Apostolos Gerasoulis, the co-creator of Ask's Teoma algorithmic search technology, featured in four television advertisements in 2007, extolling the virtues of Ask.com's usefulness for information relevance.

After a hiatus from mass consumer marketing, Ask reinstated its website's format to emphasize questions and answers, and resumed advertising by television during the autumn of 2011. Instead of national advertising, Ask emphasized local markets. During the summer of 2012, initiated a national cinema campaign, along with other out-of-home tactics in certain markets such as New York and Seattle.

As part of a Seattle-based local market effort, Ask.com initiated its campaign "You Asked We Answered" during 2012, in which the company "answered" residents' main complaints about living in their city, including easing morning commutes and stadium traffic, as well as keeping the local Parks and Recreation department's wading pools open.

On January 14, 2009, Ask.com became the official sponsor of 2000 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Champion Bobby Labonte's No. 96 Ford. Ask would become the official search engine of NASCAR. Ask.com was the primary sponsor for the No. 96 for 18 of the first 21 races and had rights to increase this to a total of 29 races that season. The Ask.com car debuted in the 2009 Bud Shootout where it failed to finish the race, but subsequently returned strongly, placing as high as 5th in a March 1, 2009, Shelby 427 race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Ask.com's foray into NASCAR represented the first instance of its venture into what it terms " Super Verticals".

See also

* Comparison of search engines
* List of search engines
* List of search engines by popularity

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Ask.Com
Companies based in Oakland, California
AskJeeves
Internet search engines
Desktop search engines
IAC Inc.
Online companies of the United States
Internet properties established in 1996
Pay-per-click search engines
Question-and-answer websites
1999 initial public offerings
2005 mergers and acquisitions