I'd rather ask my granny! (ask.co.uk)

Member Name: thom_harrison

Product:	ask.co.uk
Date:	09/08/01 (223 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Few

Disadvantages: Slow, Poor results

Ask Jeeves, as it is known. A search engine that compiles the top ten results from other search engines, and puts them together on one page, along with it's own search results.

When it first started out as Askjeeves.com, I was quite taken with it. It used some real search engines - ones I had heard of at least (Lycos, Hotbot, Altavista but to name a few). It put them all in order, made it look pretty, and was easy to navigate.


Then it sold out.

It appears to me that Ask.co.uk is a distant, moneygrabbing relative of the original Askjeeves. The adverts that take over the screen are annoying, obtrusive and at points just damn excessive. A stark contrast from the original Askjeeves.

The search facility, if anything, has crippled Ask.co.uk. Recently, I needed a new bass guitar, and after searching for about 15 mins on Ask.co.uk, i gave up and went to Google.com. 15 seconds later . . . result.

At the moment, I believe that it is quicker, easier, more efficient and simply less annoying to use a big-name search engine that only uses it's own data banks. I personally favour Google.com. If you put in a string of search characteristics with the + in front of everything you want the article to include (i.e. +bass +guitar +shop) the results are not only more concise than those of Ask, but also are presented in a way such that they are easier to understand and flick through - and get an insight to what the article is about.

Ask.co.uk disappoints me. From a great initial idea, it sold out and became the commercial crap that it is today. Askjeeves.com, RIP

Summary: