Ask.com Shuts Down After Nearly 30 Years

Ask.com, the early internet search engine once known as Ask Jeeves, shut down on May 1, 2026, after nearly three decades of operation, as parent company IAC discontinued its search business to refocus operations.

A farewell message on the Ask.com homepage announced the closure. "Every great search must come to an end," it stated. "As IAC continues to sharpen its focus, we have made the decision to discontinue our search business, which includes Ask.com. After 25 years of answering the world's questions, Ask.com officially closed on May 1, 2026." The message expressed gratitude to the engineers, designers and teams who built the platform, as well as to millions of users for their curiosity, loyalty and trust. It concluded, "Jeeves' spirit endures."

Founded in 1996 in Berkeley, California, by Garrett Gruener and David Warthen, the service launched publicly as AskJeeves.com. It pioneered natural language search, allowing users to pose full questions in plain English rather than keywords, a novelty at the time when competitors like Yahoo, AltaVista, Excite and Lycos dominated. The site's mascot, a cartoon butler named Jeeves after the character from P.G. Wodehouse novels, made...