Ask.com Search Engine

History

Teoma has been the heart of Ask search technology since 2001. The power of the Teoma algorithm, now known as ExpertRank, makes Ask one of the world's most powerful and unique search engines. Two significant events helped develop Ask search technology. First, in 1999, Ask acquired Direct Hit, a Massachusetts company that had developed the world's first "click popularity" search technology, which was licensed to MSN and Lycos, among others. Second, in 2001, Ask acquired Teoma, a 10-person start-up out of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and its unique index and search relevancy technology. Teoma was the first, and is still the only, major search technology based upon the clustering concept of subject-specific popularity: ExpertRank. In fact, Teoma means "expert" in Gaelic.

The Ask Website Crawler FAQ

Ask's Website crawler is our Web-indexing robot (or crawler/spider). The crawler collects documents from the Web to build the ever-expanding index for our advanced search functionality at Ask and other Web sites that license the proprietary Ask search technology.

Ask search technology is unique from any other search technology because it analyzes the Web as it actually exists -- in subject-specific communities. This process begins by creating a comprehensive and high-quality index. Web crawling is an essential tool for this approach, and it ensures that we have the most up-to-date search results.

REACTION:
A website crawler is a software program designed to follow hyperlinks throughout a Web site, retrieving and indexing pages to document the site for searching purposes. The crawlers are innocuous and cause no harm to an owner's site or servers. Ask utilizes website crawlers to collect raw data and gather information that is used in building our ever-expanding search index. Crawling ensures that the information in our results is as up-to-date and relevant as it can possibly be. Our crawlers are well designed and professionally operated, providing an invaluable service that is in accordance with search industry standards.