Ask Jeeves, Teoma set to battle Google
Jim Cole
eastbay.bizjournals.com
The greatest dot-com battle of the new century is about to begin if anybody cares. There probably hasn't been a match-up like this since BarnesandNoble.com challenged Amazon.com in the last century.
It's got a reigning champ: Google. And it's got a down-on-its-luck underdog trying to muscle back into contention: Ask Jeeves Inc.
Next week, Emeryville-based Ask Jeeves relaunches what it hopes is a true contender in the Internet search world Teoma. The launch comes six months after the company bought Piscataway, N.J.-based Teoma Technologies Inc. for $1.67 million in cash and 2.5 million shares.
Observers have been watching and praising Teoma's technology for months while acknowledging a key drawback the startup's database of Web sites was too small to make it a serious competitor.
"I think Teoma has a lot of potential, but they'll need to grow their index size to seriously compete with Google. And they know this and are planning to do so," search engine expert Danny Sullivan, editor of Search Engine Watch, said.
When the revamped site launches April 2, it will have 200 million URLs. That's just a fraction of Google's, but Ask Jeeves says more is not necessarily better. The company has scanned some 500 million Web pages and opted not to store most of them because they are not relevant and just clutter a search.
The buzz around Teoma has been out there since early last year.
"The groundswell that is happening with Teoma is starting in the library community," said Steve Berkowitz, president of Ask Jeeves Web Properties, explaining that the relevancy power of the technology is appealing to researchers.
"Teoma's community-generated results will be more relevant than those from Google or others that use a global system, which examines the entire Web, because links from irrelevant pages are excluded," search engine expert Sullivan wrote last summer. He added, however, that his comment understated Google's power.
Ask Jeeves already has gotten a taste of what Teoma can do. In December, Ask Jeeves integrated Teoma's search technology into its primary site, Ask.com.
Users have increased their visits to the site from 2.1 per month to 2.6 per month a 25 percent increase. Ask Jeeves aims to raise that number of monthly visits to four by year's end.
And in a sign that Teoma's technology generates relevant results, the percent of users who click on the results of a search is up 30 percent. Previously, 54 percent of users clicked on the results of a search. After Teoma was incorporated, 70 percent of users have been clicking on results, Berkowitz said.
"Relevancy drives success," he said. The business model is to provide more relevant results, which in turn prompts more clicks on results, which encourages users to use the site more often.
Google's ability to deliver relevant results quickly catapulted it beyond established search engines.
What gave Google its edge was its ability to gauge the importance of a page that links to another page. Having bentbaseballcards.com linked to your site is probably not worth as much as having the official Major League Baseball site mlb.com linked to your site. So Google will give the mlb.com-linked site added weight in a search for "baseball."
Teoma goes a step further and, rather than searching the entire Internet, breaks the Internet into related communities. This allows searchers to more easily refine and narrow their search, and Teoma can provide links to directory sites that are frequently maintained by the best experts and enthusiasts in a particular field.
A Teoma search for baseball, for example, will deliver 1.36 million Web sites Google delivers 8.94 million and it gives you 17 subcategories, such as baseball cards, hitting instruction and baseball news, to refine your search. Teoma also offers 10 resource or directory sites, which provide links to baseball-related sites.
All of this is big news for Ask Jeeves, which has been remaking itself in the past year.
"This is the first time in its history, at least in the last 18 months, it has everything in its power to move to the next level," Berkowitz said.
The company has revamped its management team. It has also revamped its sales strategy and is looking at new revenue streams. And Teoma is the final piece of the puzzle a search technology that can make it a leader, the company says.
Reach Cole at jcole@bizjournals.com or 925-598-1414. |
