Ask.com plans to upgrade its search engine on Monday with several enhancements that it considers significant and that it believes could give its popularity a boost in a market dominated by Google.

Ask.com has sharpened the relevance of its search results, made the engine faster and simplified the site's layout, said Ask.com President Scott Garrell.

"The strategy from a product perspective is to provide the best answer the first time, everytime," Garrell said. "We want to reduce the distance between your query and the answer you want."

If Ask.com can consistently provide direct answers in its search results page, Garrell believes it will grow its user base. It generally takes people 3 to 4 clicks in any search engine to get the desired information, he said.

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