ASK JEEVES Search: Ask Jeeves is a natural language search engine which attempts to resolve questions into appropriate answers. Originally launched commercially in April 1997, Ask Jeeves has created a search engine aimed at creating a unique user experience that emphasizes ease of use and relevance in its results. Ask Jeeves combines natural language questions and uses its database of knowledge bases to best determine a suitable and targeted answer. In early 2000, Ask Jeeves acquired Direct Hit and has implemented Direct Hit's technology into its search results. Ask Jeeves maintains a large knowledge base compiled by three sources. In order, they are: Human Editors, Popularity Technology (Powered by Direct Hit) and E-commerce Partners. Human editors compile a large knowledge base of questions and answers from websites which they find on the Internet (Wired 2000, 2006).

These editors have a strict guideline to adhere to when selecting which sites to add to their knowledge base. The sites must load quickly, be easy to read and navigate, must be updated regularly, should address a user’s question and be thorough, provide credible answers that are clear and justified and should off the answers freely. Ask Jeeves' subsidiary, Direct Hit, powers the popularity aspect of the ranking technology. This site is give a higher ranking to new sites. Ask Jeeves often partners with ecommerce and content providers to supplement their knowledge base. Partners are usually large content providers which are intended to strengthen the answers already included in Ask Jeeves' database. Ask Jeeves includes searches by other search engine and hence it can be considered a Meta search engine. Another special functionality is the subject clusters. When the user searches on "dvd", the following subject clusters will appear: DVD movies, DVD’s, DVD players, DVD region, etc After Ask Jeeves knowledge base results are shown, Ask Jeeves shows the top results from other search engines which are partners to Direct Hit.

These attributes of Ask Jeeves make it special. It is easy to navigate, and provides a wide range of languages to retrieve the information. However the site is not great on obscure questions such as "Why do Dalmatians have spots?" Also, there isn’t a comprehensive set of advanced search options. Inclusion of sponsored links is another weakness of Ask Jeeves. The only search tip to be followed while using Ask Jeeves is to frame simple direct specific questions for the search. .