weeks - 2:12 pm on Jun 5, 2007 (gmt 0)

I did a few city/state searches. In the major markets, you get a map and lots of helpful links. But in the smaller markets, you get typical links only, with some helpful suggestions. Google, on the other hand, provides maps and links on even the smallest towns. I find this odd, since 1) Ask was a leader at one time on local search and 2) having a map come up wouldn't be that hard to program on a city/state search request.

On common health questions, I was impressed. Try "nasal congestion" and "poison ivy," for example. Here they teamed up with a service called Healthline. The results is that it gets the job done, quick.

On shopping, I typed in Clinique (it's the makeup my wife uses) and got results back that were very helpful--and likely made money for Ask.

Ask.com is facing a really tough marketing challenge. Everyone laughed at Yahoo's investors argument that it was important to be the "early mover" and establish a name brand quickly, but that thinking proved right. Indeed, Ask has got the traffic they have only because they were one of the first players.

What a great name for a search engine. On that alone, I'd never count them out.