Ask scopes out Compete for Binoculars

Search engine Ask.com added data feeds from analytics vendor Compete to expand the view of a website via the Ask Binoculars feature. In the search result pages at Ask, a binocular icon appears alongside many of the listings. A simple mouseover of the icon, representative of the Binoculars feature, brings up a preview of the destination site. A new tab for Statistics accompanies the Preview now, itself moved to a tab in the preview window. The Compete has gained popularity for its site analytics, offered freely to visitors to compare up to three websites. In some ways it has supplanted the venerable Alexa rankings, long considered to be weighted toward the opinions of webmasters and search industry pros. It provides a nice add-on to Ask Binoculars, and falls within the company's long-time goal of putting information at people's fingertips.