Another search engine falls. Ask.com has struggled for years to gain a share of search traffic but recently cut 130 engineering jobs and is ceasing development of it’s algorithmic search technology. Ask.com president Doug Leeds said that Google has become too powerful a competitor to justify Ask’s continued pursuit of search users and that the company will focus the efforts of it’s remaining engineers on developing it’s online question-and-answer service. Ask will retain it’s search box but results will be provided by one of it’s competitors. Ask already has an agreement with Google to deliver paid advertisements so speculation is that Google will be providing the search results for Ask.com.
Thanks Jeeves – it was a valiant effort.
