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How SEOs Really Evaluate a Search Engine

Donna Fontenot | February 28th, 2006
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With all the hullabaloo about the rebranding of Ask.com yesterday, I began to look at it more seriously than ever before. I mean, frankly, I've ignored it completely all these years. So yesterday, I began to evaluate the new Ask.com, and I realized that we, as seos, probably evaluate search engines much differently than most folks.

To an SEO, what makes a good search engine? Good design? Ease of Use? Features? Relevant search results? Well, no. Ok, those things are on the list, but they aren't at the top of the list. And one could argue that those things contribute to what is on the top of an SEOs list, but that requires thinking, and logic, rather than gut evaluation. And any SEO will tell you, it's all about the gut. 🙂

Let's face it. There are only two things that immediately come to an SEO's mind when he or she evaluates a search engine.

1. How much market share does it have? Or put another way, is it going to send me any traffic or make me any money, even if I have #1 rankings across the board?

Even if the answer to question #1 is "The search engine will send me NO traffic", question #2 is inevitable, as the SEO's curiousity and ego overtakes him.

2. How do I rank in the search engine?

So, as any good SEO would do, I tackled those two questions first, when I began my evaluation yesterday of the new Ask.com.

1. How much market share does Ask.com have? Well, I frankly didn't bother to find out the actual percentage, because I already know that none of my sites get diddly squat traffic from Ask, and from everything I've read from others' comments, the same could be said for just about everyone. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure there are exceptions.

So, ok, in its present state, Ask gets a big fat X for this evaluation score. However, Barry Diller is the man in charge, and he does want to throw money at the thing, so who knows? Maybe a year from now, the answer to question #1 will be much different.

2. How do I rank in Ask? Since I have quite a few sites, and lots of keywords to track, it took a while to compile all the data. The consensus ended up being that I do ok. Not so good for some terms, very good for others. But for my big, money-making terms, I do quite well. Basically, if Ask grabbed 100% of the market share, because all of the other search engines went belly-up, I'd probably still make about the same amount of money as I do now. So, Ask gets a big fat CHECKMARK for this evaluation score.

Whew! Now that the two major questions have been answered, let's move on to the less important ones (for SEOs anyway).

3. Is Ask's design nice? Yep, sure is. CHECKMARK

4. Is Ask easy to use? Yep, sure is. CHECKMARK

5. Does Ask have great features? Yep, they sure do. CHECKMARK

6. Are Ask's search results relevant? Well, I don't know. I need more time to evaluate that. I've had Ask as my primary search engine since yesterday morning. So far, I'm neither over nor underwhelmed by the results. Evaluation score? TOO EARLY TO TELL.

Final Evaluation Score: Ask has potential, but only if they increase their market share will it matter one iota to SEOs.

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Posted in SEOTagged search engine evaluation, SEO

6 thoughts on “How SEOs Really Evaluate a Search Engine”

  1. Nirav says:
    February 28, 2006 at 9:10 am

    Yes Ask.com do have potentional to establish them as one of major search engines, but I have noticed that their crawlers are not as actives as G, Y and M, so initially they have increase their index size.

    Ask.com looks promosing to me

  2. ILoveJackDaniels says:
    February 28, 2006 at 9:12 am

    > How much market share does Ask.com have? Well, I frankly didn’t bother to find out the actual percentage, because I already know that none of my sites get diddly squat traffic from Ask

    I’ve heard similar from so many people it’s terrifying. Just because a site gets no traffic from an engine does not mean that nobody uses it. It just means that that site is getting no traffic from that engine.

    Ask actually does get some significant traffic, at least in the UK. At the end of 2005, a little over 5% of UK searches were through Ask, according to Hitwise. That’s a lot of people using an engine that most SEOs are ignoring …

  3. DazzlinDonna says:
    February 28, 2006 at 9:57 am

    See, I knew there were some out there who actually use real stats, rather than gut feelings. LOL. No doubt you’re right though, JD.

  4. rmccarley says:
    February 28, 2006 at 4:50 pm

    Donna, Ask has 2.6% of the total SE marketshare according to Nielsen at http://www.clickz.com/news/article.php/3570686. They have had the most significant growth of all the SEs.

    They are the most visible of all the “minor” SEs but they do things so differently! It isn’t what people expect of an SE and I think that while that sets them apart, it also hurts them.

    Idealy people shouldn’t even notice the process, just the results and with Ask’s features in their SERPs they should be way ahead of where they are IMO.

    In the last couple months they have expanded to the German and Spanish markets so we’ll see what happens.

    Also, I think Ask is it’s own worst enemy for SEOs. Because Ask displays so much information in their SERPs I bet they often answer the question the viewer had so the viewer no longer clicks through.

    Rand posted about that here: http://www.seomoz.org/blogdetail.php?ID=503

    But I’d watch out for Cutts making a move over there. He almost gushes about them in his blog. 😉

  5. rmccarley says:
    February 28, 2006 at 4:53 pm

    Donna, according to Nielsen Ask has the most significant growth of all the SEs but only holds 2.6% of the total market. I think part of why we don’t see much traffic for them is their “annoying” tendancy to answer the users question right in the SERPs as Rand commented on here: http://www.seomoz.org/blogdetail.php?ID=503

    Honestly, I seem to rank well with Ask, but get more traffic from Dogpile, AOL and even Clutsy.

  6. earlpearl says:
    February 28, 2006 at 5:50 pm

    Nice essay, Donna. I’d look at it in the same you did. I get diddly squat traffic. Once in a blue moon I look at my rankings.

    If I was in charge of an SE I’d conduct independant research from the general public to see how the great mass of people view SE’s.

    I just read some information on growth in the market from SES NYC. I think I read that G is gaining more market share than MSN and Y, but Y and MSN and other portals do better than G.

    All of them are competing for market share. Its a long haul for Ask.

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