Is Ask.com The Worst Search Engine EVER? Oh wait, that’s Lycos.

Techcrunch reports that Ask.com is getting even suckier! Ask Jeeves indeed, where’s the f’in’ butler when you need him? Oh, outsourced to India? Nice.

Search for Stocks on Ask and you’ll get 13 advertisements and just 9 actual search results on the first page. Same for Mortgages, Cars, and thousands of other terms. For these searches, the first actual search result is 100 pixels down the page. Some queries, like Dogs, are a little more reasonable, with just four advertisements on the first page. – from Techcrunch

However, for Worst Search Engine EVER — we vote for Lycos. Fetch this!

Hey, why doesn’t someone bring back Infoseek? Infoseek Japan is still online…

Infoseek was a very popular search engine founded in 1994 by Steve Kirsch. It was also known as “big yellow”. It was bought by The Walt Disney Company in 1998, and the technology was merged with that of the Disney-acquired Starwave to form the Go.com network. Since then it has been replaced with Yahoo! search and is no longer in use. – from Wikipedia

Oh wait, Infoseek executive arrested on solicitation charges (Cnet September 20, 1999):

Patrick Naughton, the Infoseek executive vice president in charge of Walt Disney Company’s Web sites, has been arrested and charged with using the Internet to solicit sex with a minor. The Los Angeles Times reported that Naughton, 34, was arrested Thursday on the Santa Monica Pier in California, where he had been lured by electronic messages from a male FBI agent posing as a 13-year-old girl. A Disney spokeswoman declined to comment on the matter. An Infoseek spokeswoman today confirmed Naughton’s arrest and added he is “no longer an employee of Infoseek.”

Related:

Former Infoseek Corp. executive Patrick Naughton will avoid jail — he won’t even have to help the cops nab online criminals any longer. Naughton, who pleaded guilty in March to travelling across state lines to have sex with a minor, was sentenced on Wednesday in Los Angeles to five years of probation, including nine months of home detention. He also must pay a US$20,000 fine and register as a sex offender. – Patrick Naughton walks free