Ask and Ask Jeeves go back to basics and launch an enlarged question and answer database that allows for natural language search queries.

Those who have followed Ask.com AKA Ask Jeeves since 1996, know that it started out as a natural language query search engine. The idea was that you should be able to enter a regular question in the search box and get a sensible reply in return.

Originally: a human powered Q and A directory

Given that computers are pretty stupid beasts at best, Ask Jeeves used human manpower to generate a database for the most common questions and answers.

In that way the search engine was more like a human edited directory than an automatically generated search engine.

Adding keyword search

They did add results generated by a regular search engine, though, and in 2001 they acquired the Teoma search engine, switching the focus over to more traditional keyword searching.

Now, however, Ask seems to revive its old belief in natural language queries.

Back to basics

This week Ask.com unveiled its proprietary database of 300 million Q&A pairs for consumers in the United States and United Kingdom.

This time, however, they are not using their own editors to match questions and web pages. Instead they crawl and index questions and answers from different sources across the web.

Ask then makes use of a so-called semantic search technology (a technology that analyzes the meaning of sentences) to cluster, rephrase and determine the relevance of answers.

The result is, according to Ask, “a Q&A database that is fine-tuned to give consumers the best answer, the first time, every time through streamlined, localized, concise results to their questions.”

It should be noted that this “answer farm” was originally launched last year but that this year’s versions has tripled the number of Q and A’s.

The answers are mixed in with more regular search results in Ask’s default web search option.

Searchers asks Ask questions

Ask refers to research by comScore which apparently shows that consumers enter search queries on Ask.com in the form of a question three times more than on any other major search engine.

Ask’s reputation of being a natural language search engine apparently lingers on, and the company has decided to take advantage of that

You can limit your search to the 300 million Q&A pairings database by clicking on the “Lots of Answers” link on the homepage of Ask.com or AskJeeves.co.uk