Editorial Policy

Editorial Guidelines
Ask.com's mission is to deliver the most relevant answers to your everyday searches. We do this by providing a variety of results that match your search queries. These results are generated through multiple methods - from hand-selected answers to results delivered using state-of-the-art search technology. Below are explanations for how we generate our search results, as well as definitions for some of the terms we use on our results page.

Recommended Results
Editors have selected these sites as being particularly useful and relevant to your search. Advertising partners may sponsor some of these results. Partners sponsoring any results are required to ensure that the links for which they are responsible provide access only to content that is legal, decent, honest and truthful, in accordance with guidelines set by the Advertising Standard Authority.

Web Results
Ask.com delivers its primary search results using Ask.com's search technology. Ask.com search technology uses sophisticated algorithms and Subject-Specific Popularity data to generate the most relevant and authoritative results on the Web. In some instances companies pay to have their websites included within the dataset, otherwise known as the Index. Like all websites, these sites are processed through Ask.com's search algorithms and are not guaranteed placement in the results. This ensures that relevancy is the primary driver of results.

Picture Search
These results look for thumbnail images related to your query, displayed in order of relevance. These images may be subject to copyright.

Adult Content
Ask .com receives millions of searches each day, some of which are sexual in nature. Ask.com has deployed technology that will display a warning page if it detects that sexually explicit search results are likely to be presented in response to a user search. However, while we constantly seek to use the most effective and up to date systems, users should note that current technology is unlikely to be 100% effective, and should proceed accordingly. We also take extra steps to block sexual content from being viewed by children by offering Family Filter technology.

Sponsored Results
We request that all providers of sponsored links on Ask .com abide by the Advertising Standard Authority's own guidelines. We are unable to regulate or monitor the service and performance of our partners, but we do require all content for which they are responsible to be "legal, decent, honest and truthful". If we are made aware of any site that deliberately and consistently infringes these requirements, we will consider immediate removal of their links from our results pages.

Comments about a 3rd party website
Unfortunately, Ask.com is not able to monitor or regulate the standard of service provided by any third party link or partner. Complaints about websites and links found via Ask.com should first be directed to the website in question, or alternatively to the appropriate regulatory body, such as the Office of Fair Trading. We always advise extra caution when ordering items from websites based outside the UK. For a full description of the Ask.com terms of service, please refer to our "Terms of Service" statement.