Ask

Ask.com is a question answering-focused web search engine that delivers answers from the web and real people.

Ask.com is a top 10 US website and digital brand (as ranked by Nielsen) with more than 100 million monthly users globally. Founded in 1996, Ask.com was originally known as Ask Jeeves and specialized in natural language search. In Sept 2001, the company acquired Teoma Technologies, and began shifting Ask's algorithms away from natural language search. AskJeeves was acquired by [IAC](http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/IAC) in March 2005 for $1.85 Billion and renamed Ask.com in 2006. In July 2010, Ask.com returned to its Q&A roots with the beta launch of its question and answer (Q&A) offering that uses a hybrid of search technology and human response to address complex or opinion-based questions. The company also launched it flagship mobile application (since downloaded more than 3 million times) in the fall of 2010. In 2012, Ask.com made two acquisitions as part of a larger strategy to offer more content on the Ask.com website. On July 2, 2012 Ask.com purchased content discovery start-up, nRelate, for an undisclosed amount. That was followed by the company's acquisition of expert advice and information site About.com, which closed in September 2012 Ask.com's ads are served by Google.