IAC, the owners of Ask.com, have decided to get out of the search business and shut down one of the oldest and most legendary search engines of all time - Ask.com, formerly Ask Jeeves. IAC wrote, "As IAC continues to sharpen its focus, we have made the decision to discontinue our search business, which includes Ask.com."
The Ask.com home page now reads, "Every great search must come to an end." "As IAC continues to sharpen its focus, we have made the decision to discontinue our search business, which includes Ask.com. After 25 years of answering the world's questions, Ask.com officially closed on May 1, 2026."
"To the millions who asked..."
"We are deeply grateful to the brilliant engineers, designers, and teams who built and supported Ask over the decades. And to you—the millions of users who turned to us for answers in a rapidly changing world—thank you for your endless curiosity, your loyalty, and your trust.
Jeeves’ spirit endures."
Here is a screenshot:
In February 2006, Ask retired Ask Jeeves for just Ask.com. Ask Jeeves later had a brief stint as a porn star (yea, some dark times). But through the years, Ask.com seemed to just make money as an arbitrage engine, and that is not an easy thing.
The interesting thing is that Ask.com literally was the definition of what search engines are doing now with AI and chat. Now that the technology is here to make Ask.com what it always wanted to be, it shuts down. Meanwhile, Jim Lanzone, who was CEO of Ask.com is now the Chief Executive Officer at Yahoo, who is investing big time into Yahoo Scout - something that maybe Ask.com should have been.
On a more personal touch, Ask.com helped me get married.
If you want to go through my archives on Ask.com, check it out over here.
Forum discussion at X.
