Ask Jeeves
Valet finds answers
Ask Jeeves was a search engine launched in 1996, distinguished by its butler mascot and natural language query format—you could type questions as full sentences rather than keywords.
The name evoked a helpful manservant ready to find answers.
It rebranded to Ask.com in 2006, but Ask Jeeves persists as nostalgic shorthand for early internet search: Back in the day, you'd just Ask Jeeves.
- inquireAsk for information
- queryRequest for information
- search queryInput for finding information
- requestFormal act of seeking
- natural languageHuman communication, not programming
search engine · web search · Alexa · web crawler · P.G. Wodehouse · Yahoo · spidering · metadata · Baidu · butler · AOL · Yandex · Siri · Cortana · Quora · virtual assistant · dogpile · early internet