One of the many
metasearch engines available on the Web. Ask Jeeves is not a standalone search engine service like Google or AltaVista. It does not have it’s own directory index.
Rather, it is a
metasearch engine, or an engine that is used to search a number of other relevant search engines such as Google, Alta Vista, HotBot & Excite among others. Ask Jeeves’ search results are a compilation of results from the other engines it searches.
Ask Jeeves also supports
natural language parsing, which allows users to post questions in their queries rather than simply entering keywords for their searches.
Many enterprise search appliances and knowledge base engines (also called
Expert Systems) use natural language parsing for retrieving and delivering information on demand.