thecityofgold2005 - 7:30 pm on Jun 11, 2007 (gmt 0)

I think you are fundamentally wrong and are guilty of two common traits of people involved in this industry:

1. Your business and income depends on SEO, and for you that means Google link SEO. You are thus fundamentally pro-Google whatever may be.

e.g.

Nah, although sometimes it feels like it.

2. You see search through the eyes of a technician and not a user.

e.g.

Google doesn't need to change its home page with the exception of getting rid of a few html errors. :)

Users are regular people who couldn't give a damn about algorithms or html errors :)!

They'll see the dynamic search suggestions, the skins, and the flashy videos and pictures in the search results and be impressed. The fact is that for most searches the differences between Ask and Google are minor, only now Ask has a lot of added wow factor.

Google is also guilty of this second trait IMO. Hence we are where we are now, drowning under Google's faulty backlink driven algorithm with virtually zero effort from the monopoly Google to introduce features the user might want.

Watch what happens. My money is where my mouth is. Ask is on the way up.