Oneupweb Reviews: Ask Results Appearing in I-Frame

Is Ask attempting to sway Google loyalists by kidnapping its own followers’ search results?

That sounds just too funny and makes no sense. How can you sway a Google loyalist if it requires them to use the Ask search engine?

But that’s just how confused I am about why Ask would hijack search results by putting them in an I-Frame.

OK, let me explain.

Using the Ask search engine is the same. You type in what you’re searching for and results pop up. The difference now is your results appear in an I-Frame. An Ask search box appears at the top left-hand corner of the search results page.

The Ask search box follows users as they click through to websites from the results page. As you can see below, I found Gifts.com in my search for “valentines gifts” on Ask. If I wanted, I could use that search box to broaden or narrow my search.

Ask really didn’t consider search behavior when they developed this idea and that’s probably why only 3.9 percent of users like this search engine.

I search by opening new tabs, which means I don’t lose pages I find interesting. I don’t hit the back button. And by the way, using this Ask search box in hopes of getting around a disabled back button won’t work.

Also, searchers can download any number of tool bars. Microsoft’s tool bar got a serious upgrade last year and Google launched Toolbar 5 in Beta.

And Ask counters these upgrades with a dorky search box that appears to tag after searchers.

To be fair, you can tell this box to go away and never come back. But I am just confused why it every showed up to begin with.

Official Oneupweb Review: Oneup Thumbs-Down!