Ask Jeeves Still Popular After 3 Years as Ask
Often Misspelled Jeeve, Jevves, Jeaves, Gieves, Geves, Jeebs, Jeebes
Launched in 1996 with a quirky butler named Jeeves, Ask Jeeves was the popular search engine offering a fresh approach to web searching. Jeeves offered a happy cartoon character to oversee a user's search and provide a bit of humorous comfort while searching.
According to his February 18, 2006 Ask.com blog post "Thanks, Jeeves," Jim Lanzone notes Jeeves as a pop culture icon for 10 years. It seems Jeeves spent some time away from the web site. Jeeves became the first dot-com icon to appear in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and can even boast a guest appearance on Arrested Development.
Even with his popularity, his mature look was considered to be too old and lethargic. This is not something a powerful search engine wants to associate itself. To complicate matters, it became clear many users had a hard time spelling his name.
What Happened to Jeeves? Ask Jeeves Butler Gets a Makeover
In September 2004, Jeeves the butler made a disappearance from the search engine's site leaving many to wonder where he had gone. Like the episode of Dallas that left the world asking, "Who shot J.R.?", many people grew curious where the search engine mascot had went.
In the September 18, 2004 CNET News article "Ask.com's Jeeves Disappears on 'Gardening Leave'," Aylin Savkan, vice president of marketing at Ask Jeeves stated, "As our site evolves and updates, we felt that Jeeves too needed to take a break and a new look to personify the new, fresh and dynamic Ask Jeeves that we will launch on his return." A few days later, a much more youthful Jeeves returned. A little nip-tuck and hair coloring made a world of difference to his new image, now more sleek and younger looking.
Jeeves would only last another year before being pushed into early retirement. Ask Jeeves announced in early 2006 it would be dropping the more youthful Jeeves entirely and rebranding as Ask.com. Now known as simply Ask, Ask asked us to forget about the butler and to focus on high-quality searching.
Many Ways to Spell Jeeves, Jevves, Jeebs, Jieves
One major issue with the name Ask Jeeves is that many web users didn't know how to spell it. As many parents fear naming their child with a name he or she may live to regret, Jeeve's name may well have been his downfall. However, aggressive marketing in the late 1990s and early 2000s was money well-spent as it left an imprint on the minds of many.
Each month, 2 million searches on average are performed on one of many misspelled permutations of the Ask Jeeves name. The most popular searches are for correctly spelled versions on the name, however here are the average monthly search counts for variations on the name.
- 135,000 looking for 'jeeves question'
- 22,000 wondering 'what happened to jeeves'
- 22,000 still hoping to 'search jeeves'
- 14,000 politely seek 'mr jeeves'
- Many thousands misspelling as: ask gieves, ask jeebs, ask jevves
- Many hundreds with more extreme spelling issues: aks jeeves, aask jeeves, sak jeeves
Maybe Jeeves is enjoying his retirement and maybe he even went on to pursue higher education. It seems quite a few people are also hoping to 'ask dr jeeves'.
So, it's now clear what happened to Jeeves. It remains unclear though just how long his name will remain in the public's hearts and minds. With 2 million searches each month, Jeeves may be around for quite some time.
Jeeves Enjoying Retirement in Provence
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