nn Marie:
My comments were specifically about the main Ask Jeeves product.
Also, in the past two months Ask Jeeves has made a major effort to reduce the
number of paid links on result pages.
http://www.clickz.com/news/article.php/3524756
Finally, have you checked out the new AJ services that allow the searcher to
narrow and focus their search?
Take a look at this search for "JK Rowling."
http://web.ask.com/web?q=%22JK+Rowling%22&qsrc=0&o=0
Things to look for:
1) The Smart Answer at the top of the page. Bio, direct links to official
sites, pictures, etc.
2) Only one ad at the top of the page LABELED sponsored web result
3) Look to the right side of the page.
A) Terms to narrow your search by simply clicking
B) Terms to Expand a search
C) Related names. Heck, the first related name list is JK Rowlings full name.
cheers,
gary
p.s. May I have permission to share your note about AJ Kids with the VP of
Search at AJ? I'm having lunch with him in the next few weeks.
Quoting Ann Marie Gordon <agordon@LIVONIACSD.ORG>:
> The AskJeeves product for kids, www.ajkids.com, leaves much to be
> desired.
>
> This past summer I taught a seminar for our teachers on online databases
> and the web, and thoroughly enjoyed myself finding examples of lousy
> search results using various search engines. (I know, it's like
> shooting fish in a barrel, and constructing a proper search takes care
> of a lot of it. Still fun.)
>
> Try searching "J.K. Rowling" on ajkids and you get a biography several
> years and two books out of date, after you scroll past the "ads by
> google" that appear to be part of the search results. Search on "pandas"
> and you get an amateurish looking report on the panda, some broken
> links, and (I love this) a link to a story on "Plastic telephones
> recalled by TDT Toy company." Oh, and a link to a site on otters. In
> Gaelic.
>
> All this is doubly infuriating, because doing identical searches in the
> "parent" search engine at ask.com returns some very good results.
> It looks like they work so hard at paring down the results and
> presenting a simple format to kids that they remove all useful
> information.
>
> Gary's comments on the need for some outreach to the education community
> from major search engines are right on target.
>
>
> Anne-Marie Gordon, Librarian
> Livonia Primary School
> Livonia, NY
> agordon@livoniacsd.org
> http://www.livoniacsd.org/primaryschool/gordon/index.htm
>
> "A library is not a luxury, but one of the necessities of life." Henry
> Ward Beecher.
>
> >>> gary price <gary@RESOURCESHELF.COM> 10/02/05 10:46 AM >>>
> One thing is for sure, I applaud Answers.com for reaching out to the
> K-12 communuity... I've blogged a great deal over a long period of time
> about how major web engines need to do more and reach out to the
> education community...
>
> Also, have you seen what Ask Jeeves has been doing for the past 4.5
> years.
>
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