Just ask him.

askjeeves and altavista were very popular names among net surfers back in late 90s. I have used them myself and have to admit, with the B.G (Before Google) era knowledge I had, I was quite satisfied and at times even amused at the number of result pages they could bring back. I slowly came to realize that most of these results were totally out of context and that the search engines could be a lot smarter than they actually were. Much later, with the advent of the google phenomena , these oldies fell further down in my eyes. I just couldn't believe we had not only been content but had also heavily relied on such mediocre products to search for resources in the internet. In spite of the early start and the user base they enjoyed , these search engines were knocked out by google, for which I would squarly blame their inferior technology.

More than half a decade after its inception, google has firmly established itseld and is so invincible today that, the work "search engine " and google have become synonymous; only 0.001% of the browser homepages I have come across are something other from google.com; people suggest you to "google it" where they actually mean to say "search in the internet". The news however is that askjeeves, having been decimated by google like other search engines of its times, has decided to correct its past mistakes and stand up. As part of their catching-up activity, they are trying to renovate its brand by dropping that stupid looking comic character from their name. Yes, it's no longer askjeeves.com, just ask.com. Jeeves was probably a pathetic reminiscent of its past and had to go. They have vastly improved the search technology and their UI. I played around with the rejuvenated search engine for a little while and here is my quick verdict - Quite impressive. Ask.com seems to be searching stuff as fast as google. I cannot vouch for the quality of results but the initial feel is that it's as good as that of google. And some online opinions like this article seem to indicate that they have even managed to edge out google from usability perspective. Sounds like, google have finally got a credible competitor to fight with!