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Search Engine Evolution: From Archie to Bing |
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Saturday, 13 June 2009 |
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Page 9 of 11
Ask Jeeves
Designed to let people search using natural-language queries, Ask Jeeves was introduced by Garrett Gruener and David Warthen in April 1997. Search results came from a list of sites compiled by staffers, advertisers and search engine partners, and users were often left wondering how relevant Jeeves' answers were.
Looking to bolster its results, the company bought the Direct Hit search engine in 2000 and integrated its technology. One year later, Ask Jeeves acquired Teoma, which touted an algorithm that identified authoritative sites within a subject by determining how many other sites covering that subject linked to it. Teoma still powers Ask.com, which dropped Jeeves in 2006, though he's reappeared with a nicer suit in the U.K.
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