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May 26, 2005

We're Not Just For Questions Anymore, But Check This Out

What is Ask Jeeves?

Web answer example

That is the answer our new product, Web Answers, found on the web. No, really.

Obviously, with world-class search technologies and features, Ask Jeeves is about much more than questions these days. Still, about 20% of searches on Ask Jeeves are entered in the form of a question (down from about 70% in the old days), vs. about 10% on other search engines. If we're going to help people find what they need more easily (in other words, quickly), we need to provide more relevant results for these kinds of searches.

Our Smart Answers product was one important step, diving structured databases to present accurate information at the top of the page. But we needed to cast the net more widely to respond to all the searches looking for a direct answer. Enter our latest product, Web Answers.

Web Answer example 2
Web Answers is a new technology that, through a combination of our NLP expertise and Teoma search, harnesses the information out there on the open Web to find you answers…in real time.

When we set out to solve this problem, we studied existing state-of-the-art, including various TREC systems, and we got some of our inspiration from that. But making this technology perform on a web-wide production scale in real time had never been demonstrated... until now. Take one cup of linguistic processing, add two table-spoons of Teoma special sauce, throw in a search-friendly UI… and we got Web Answers fresh out of the oven. In the coming months, under our tender loving care, we hope to continue to expand its repertoire of knowledge.

Direct Answers from Search

Some favorite queries from the web answers team:

what is the big dig
what is bubble tea
what is love
smallest mammal
what is biryani
what is the name of the dog on the cracker jack box?
inventor of the television
who said the eyes are the windows to the soul
when did seinfeld start
smallest big cat

Stay tuned to see more improvements coming soon!

Rona Yang, Knowledge Systems Group
Deqing Chen, Teoma Search Engineering

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Comments

we hope to continue to expand its repertoire of knowledge :)

Posted by: Vismut | May 30, 2005 5:25:38 PM

A great insight into Web Answers :o)

Posted by: Ozami | May 31, 2005 7:25:46 PM

Ryan ... congrats on getting this out! Great stuff.

Posted by: T. Brokaw | Jun 3, 2005 3:35:48 PM

yup top bananas!

Posted by: seo | Jun 6, 2005 6:50:48 PM

great service!

Posted by: gadgets | Jun 6, 2005 6:51:23 PM

When I worked there, one of the recurring top questions was, "Is Jeeves gay?" I'm not kidding. Not sure if management ever came up with a response for that one.

Posted by: sac | Jun 8, 2005 1:10:28 PM

lol so is he??

Posted by: Celebrity | Jun 20, 2005 7:45:03 AM

If is true... is true.

Posted by: John | Jun 21, 2005 10:34:48 AM

what are the special features of ask jeeves apart from Google?

Posted by: web solutions | Jun 23, 2005 12:19:05 AM

Ask Jeeves takes more searches this month

Posted by: Buy Cipro | Jun 23, 2005 12:29:34 AM

Nice ideea. I think that Ask Jeeves ore one of the best search engines.

Posted by: danY | Jun 29, 2005 10:06:24 AM

Ask Jeeves - Zoom, is the next generation of Related Topics. Excellent feature - really nice. Highly recommended.

Posted by: jay | Jul 8, 2005 7:40:12 PM

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Opinions expressed here and in any corresponding comments are the personal opinions of the original authors, not of IAC Search & Media and may not have been reviewed in advance.

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