New Local Search Interface For Ask Jeeves

Better late than never. Sigh. There's a new local search interface available at Ask Jeeves ( http://www.askjeeves.com .) You access it through the "Local" tab at the top of the page, which takes you to http://local.ask.com/local .

The local section has its own tabs: Web, Business Listings, Maps, Directions, Local News, and Weather. You're giving a query box for keywords, and another for city or zip.

I did a search for business listings, searching Pizza in Chicago. The search returned results for Chicago IL but also gave me a link to results for Chicago WI. Results included business name, address, and phone number, along with a link to a map -- pretty standard fare.

I clicked on the Local News tab, thinking that I might get searches for the keyword pizza in Chicago news. Instead I got a repeat of the query page, with Chicago filled in. When I clicked on it I got the Topix news for Chicago. While I like Topix very much, this was disappointing.

I went and did a local Web search, which instead of having two query boxes only has one. My search for Chicago Pizza did find some Chicago-related pizza places, but also some unlikely sites like The History of Pizza and The World's First Japanese Pizza Page.

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