Ask.com drops battle with Google to enter women's market

In a dramatic about-face, Ask.com is abandoning its effort to outshine internet search leader Google and will instead focus on a narrower lifestyle market of married women.

As part of the new direction, Ask will shed about 40 employees, or 8% of its workforce.

With the shift, the Oakland, California-based company will return to its roots by concentrating on finding answers to basic questions about recipes, hobbies, children’s homework, entertainment and health.

The decision to cater to married women primarily living in the southern and mid-western United States comes after Ask spent years trying to build a better all-purpose search engine than Google.

The quest intensified after Internet conglomerate InterActiveCorp bought Ask and its affiliated websites for €1.56bn in 2005. But Ask.com remained an also-ran, despite spending tens of millions of dollars on an advertising blitz about dozens of new products that impressed many industry analysts.

Through January, Ask ran the internet’s fifth largest search engine in the United States with a 4.5% market share, according to comScore Media Metrix. Google dominates the industry with a 58.5% share.

“No matter what (Ask) did, it just wasn’t enough to get people to leave Google,” said Chris Winfield, who runs a search engine consulting firm, 10e20. “This looks they are raising the white flag.”

Jim Safka, who became Ask’s chief executive two months ago, said the retooling would breathe new life into the search engine.

“Everyone at Ask is excited about our clear focus and the trajectory-changing results it will deliver,” he said in a statement.

Forrester Research analyst Charlene Li said Ask’s new strategy could help boost the company’s profits because married women – particularly mothers – dictated many household spending decisions, making them a prime advertising target.

“It’s a smart move,” she said. “I still think Ask has great technology, but it’s just really hard to fight against Google.”