The Tenacious Ask.com tries to take over the phrase, "Algorithm"

I saw the movie "Rudy" in 1993 - afterwards my girlfriend said, "You know, the lesson you come away from this with is, 'some dreams just shouldn't be chased.' After all, he spends four years getting the crap kicked out of him, just so he can hold the ball for 12 seconds? What a moron!" Her point was valid. Why keep slamming your head into a wall without actually moving forward? Take Ask.com - since dropping the "AskJeeves" moniker last year, they have kept a straight face while insisting they were going to create competition for Google. Their latest bid is a series of commercials that stress the term, "The Algorithm," even writing it along the bottom of the screen, making it more visible than the actual Ask.com brand. The strategy appears to be backfiring - everyone thinks their "algorithm" ads are actually for Google.

The initial idea had been to take "algorithm" away from Google in terms of public perception. But throughout the blogosphere this week, there are stories and stories about the confusing nature of the Ask.com ads. It will be interesting to see how Ask.com does with this "algorithm" strategy, but I can't help but think: Google owns that term, and they didn't even try. All they need is a single post on the Google Blog, telling Ask.com, "Our algorithm can beat up your algorithm," and they'll have the term back again. If you start seeing Google commercials, however, that will be the sign that Ask's strategy is working. Now if they can just deliver better results than Google, they should be all set. BTW, I was going to actually post video from the Ask.com commercial, but their video search doesn't host any video - instead it redirects you to whatever page it found the video on originally, though it may or may not be there anymore. I guess I could have posted the video off of Google, but that would have seemed mean.

About the Author: Eric Reid

I am the Social Media Services Manager for Off Madison Ave. I've been with the company since 2006, when I was hired to do SEO, and link building in particular. When social networking sites started cropping up, at first I started using them to create backlinks - but they weren't the best for that, given all of the "nofollow" attributes. However, I did see the potential for all of the direct referral traffic they represent. Since then I've been actively pursuing both tactics for clients: Links that can help them for search, and social postings that get them involved in the conversation. It's about the coolest job you could ever get. ;)