garyr_h - 7:38 am on May 19, 2006 (gmt 0)

Eh, Ask does have some branding issues, especially with the younger crowd. When I was doing a project in high school (around 5-6 years ago), everyone said 'go to askjeeves to search'. It was just the thing to do for us teenagers. We didn't really know about Google and Yahoo merely a portal. Now when a teen is asked to do projects, they say 'go to google'.

Perhaps the SERPs do have something to do with it (which I'm sure it does), but branding is a major issue as well. A lot of people who aren't computer sauve wouldn't know any better if the results completely stunk (or rather, they wouldn't know anywhere else better). They either go to the last place they've heard of (which could be a commercial) or a place their friend told them. And right now it's Googling.