Competition among businesses on the Internet is strong. As such, even the major search engines are looking for new and innovative methods for meeting the needs of Internet users. Ask.com is no exception.

Ask.com, which was originally known as Ask Jeeves, is an Internet search engine that was created in 1996 by Garret Gruener and David Warthen. Originally, the software used by the search engine was developed by Gary Chevsky, but the search engine has evolved a great deal since it was originally founded.

The original marketing angle of Ask.com involved the use of Jeeves, which was an illustrated valet referred to as the “gentleman’s personal gentleman.” The concept was that Jeeves would go out and search the Internet for users in order to bring back the information they were seeking.

The original concept behind Ask Jeeves was to allow the user to get answers to questions asked using natural language rather than just with a keyword search. As such, it was the first search engine to operate in such a manner. Ask.com holds true to this original formula, though users are no longer guided through the Web with the help of Jeeves, who was completely phased out by February of 2006. Nonetheless, Ask.com remains one of the most user-friendly and intuitive search engines available and its technology has been bought and used by other corporations, including E*Trade, Toshiba, and Dell.

As more and more search engines entered the scene and indexed larger numbers of web sites, Ask Jeeves started to lose some of its customers. As a result, the company began to rework its software in order to allow users to conduct keyword searches in addition to the question asking format. Ask.com still ended up behind other search engines such as Google, MSN, and Yahoo!, but actually managed to avoid the computer-generated linkspam issues of the others engines because it was slower to add new webpages to its index. As a result, Ask.com was able to more readily find relevant websites that had become buried on the other three search engines.

In addition to its search engine qualities, Ask.com owns a number of other sites. Many of these sites are specific to countries throughout the world, including Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, the UK, and The Netherlands. Some sites owned by the company include Ask for Kids, MyWay.com, Excite, Bloglines, and iWon.com. Due to the amount of traffic the company’s sites receive, Ask.com is currently one of the top ten parent companies in the United States as rated by comScore and by Nielsen/NetRatings.

Although Ask.com still is not considered to be the number one search engine, it is one of the “Big Four” and is still regularly used by millions of web surfers throughout the world. Even those that do not consider Ask.com to be their number one search engine choice will often choose to visit this site if their number one site does not seem to be bringing up relevant information. Often, the sites brought up by Ask.com are very different than those brought up as the top sites from other search engines, making it a very valuable tool for acquiring a wide variety of information when conducting research.

The various other sites operated by Ask.com also makes the company valuable to a broader audience. With Ask for Kids, kids can search for information on the Internet with a “kid-friendly” format. In addition, the site focuses highly on education and automatically filters out questionable content. In that way, parents can feel safe allowing their children to use the power of the Internet without stumbling upon content that would be considered questionable.

The Internet is filled with a great deal of useful information. Unfortunately, it also contains a number of websites that provide incorrect information or that exist solely as an attempt to strip money from those that are searching the Internet. Therefore, finding a valuable website that contains accurate and useful information can sometimes be a challenge.

About.com strives to help web surfers sort through the muck and find information, articles, and web sites that are beneficial. The site does this by employing hundreds of expert “Guides” that help steer site visitors in the right direction when researching specific topics. To date, the site has over 570 guides and new guides and new topics are being added on a regular basis.

The use of these expert guides combined with the massive amount of topics already covered by the site has earned the site well over 34 million visitors. It has also earned the site recognition as one of the top ten content sites on the Net.
More… About.com was started in 1996 and quickly gained user attention and respect. By combining elements of other popular content sites, such as AOL, MSN, CNET, and WebMD, the site was able to develop its own unique user-friendly formula. As a result, the site was purchased by The New York Times Company in March 2005, which is where the site remains today.

In order to provide site visitors with a meaningful and unique experience, About.com carefully screens those that will work as site Guides. Each of its Guides must meet certain criteria, including:

* Individual Expertise
* Supreme Dedication
* Highly Credentialed
* Rigorously Trained
* Award Winning

In essence, the site selects only the “cream of the crop” to work as one of its Guides. Each Guide must demonstrate their expertise in the subject area through their educational qualifications as well as their personal experiences and writing abilities. Since each Guide must demonstrate a supreme amount of dedication, only about 2% of those that begin the training process actually complete it.

Many of those employed as Guides with About.com are also nationally recognized experts in their fields or are nationally recognized authors. As a result, many of these Guides are sought online and off for their opinions and expertise in these areas. In addition, 20 of the guides on the site have been recognized by Forbes as “Best of Web,” with three being listed among the Forbes “Favorites.”

Each of those selected as potential Guides must also undergo a rigorous training program. Not only does this program help to hone their writing skills, it also teaches them how to hold the interest of their audience as well as how to maintain the content of their subject in the best manner possible.

As a result of this rigorous training and the dedication of the management and Guides on About.com, the site has received numerous accolades. It has also grown the point that it offers 1.5 million pieces of original content to its readers as well as 22 different channels. The site currently offers pieces spanning an amazing 57,000 different topics and more than 3,000 new pieces of information are added to the site every week.

The expertise of the Guides has also turned the About.com community into one that is well-trusted and looked toward when surfing the Internet for valuable and useful information. It is also ideal for businesses looking for a place on the Internet where they can surround their brand with relevant information that will help bring new visitors to their sites. As a result, it is a win-win formula for everyone involved with the site.

Propeller is a product of Netscape and is one of the few sites that provide viable ‘one way’ links to all the webmasters out there. From what I have seen so far, the only bug in the system has to be the submit page, for it sure could do with some rework. Half the time the summit page works and the other half, it does not. But other than that, it is quite easy to submit ones story/article with the link pointing to one’s site. There are quite a few tools available here at propeller that you can use to drive more traffic to your site.

Membership is of course free and one can start a network here from scratch, all that you would have to do is to join up with a few others as friends and start exchanging posts amongst yourselves. By doing so, you would have your own social network; it is that easy here at propeller. The next time you want to tinker with social bookmarks, think Propeller.

For example, if you were to go to Google and type in ‘delicious’, instead of something related to food, you would come across this site in the top listing. That should give you an idea as to its popularity. This site has made quite a few changes from introducing add on buttons, which you can add to your site to a better organization of all your bookmarks. Del.icio.us is like a closet with all of your favorite clothes, the ones you like and the ones you use every single day. We all come across many websites and quite a few articles, and it is hard to remember all of them. But with the services offered by Del.icio.us, we can now bookmark the sites we like and add them to our folder at Del.icio.us. As a member, we are able to add any bookmarks we like to this site and refer to them later at our leisure.

Del.icio.us is also one of the few sites that encourages socialization on a whole new level, so much so that as a new member the chances of you meeting new friends is higher here than anywhere else. By developing friends and social contacts, you can use them to market your views. In addition, your social contacts will have full access to all that you would have book marked and then there are the tags. Del.icio.us uses a system of tags by which one can label each article while book marking them. These tags go a long way to increasing the popularity of the article and driving traffic to your site. But do note that only recent posts get the attention of the Del.icio.us members, so if you are interested in maintaining the popularity of your site, you should bookmark as often as you can. This is one of the best social bookmarks, that is available today.