Optimising for Ask

[crafted]

As a bit of a change from discussing the big 3...

Hitwise's statistics for Ask.co.uk in the 4 weeks up to May 26th 2007 show that Ask.co.uk has around a 5% share of the UK search engine market; just behind MSN (see: Heather Hopkins - Hitwise UK: Panama UK Launch - Updated Search Stats). This, coupled with the site's recent redesign and new functionality mean that it should afford it more than a passing consideration when optimising.

After a short time reviewing a variety of results today, it does appear that it values backlinks / site popularity less than it does use of keywords in title, Meta & # of uses in body copy with extra credit for recurrences of the search phrase in order. Obviously these are important on the other major engines too; but site's I would expect to appear in top positions barely rank at all.

Does anybody else have experiences of optimising for Ask?

Thanks,
Brad

[weslinda]

While they may be gaining, I'm still finding Ask to be a bit off on search results, and now with their new features, they seem to not understand what people might be looking for, ane even perhaps offering suggestions that might offend some people. One of my clients sells nursing bras and maternity lingere. In a search for nursing bras, Ask.com offers these as alternatives to the search.

Girls in Bras Kissing
Babes in Nursing Bras
Woman without Bra

While I think Ask wins with the new wizbang features, I think the issue they will still face is the quality of the results. In regards with optimizing for Ask. I think that the items you mention are true, and that should be a part of your traditional on page optimizing. Your Title tag, meta description and keywords and on page content should have well optimized content for the keywords or phrases that are best the page.

[idansh]

I like the older one, I don't like features that nobody realy needs or asked for, and concerning the results, yahoo are much better. concerning the optimization issue, Optimize your page for your webpage not the search engine, you can't optimize your website for each engine so concentrate on your website keywords that are most relevant.

[weslinda]

Actually, I think people will enjoy the multi-faceted results page, the issue will be they need to get better results. That will be the true tale to their long term success.

[ctabuk]

Teoma has it's own system
Teoma Review on Search Engine Showdown

Having said that Ask absolutely adores my site - I have been top in Ask for 4 years now

the classic search being 'Right to Buy'

In fact at the last count I have something like 600 search terms that Ask has placed me for on page one. It loves and thrives on fresh content.

Follow the links to ask at the bottom of the page - for some reason cut and paste of their URL's are returning to the home page.

[weslinda]

CTA...I haven't seen as much of the "thrives on fresh content" from ask. But glad to hear you are seeing solid results from Ask. I've found that Ask tends to be a bit dated on some things, but maybe that will change.

[ctabuk]

I had to go back a couple of pages on stats to find a demo - but here it is
It used my Google Alerts on a related topic and placed me in 5th spot on page one. So things are changing
United Kingdom
88-106-127-42.dynamic.dsl.as9105.com (88.106.127.42) [Label IP Address]
www.counciltenantsmortgages.co.uk/social-homebuy-news.html
www.counciltenantsmortgages.co.uk/social-homebuy-news.html
uk.ask.com/web?q=social homebuy areas&qsrc=999&l=dis&siteid=41627715