"Google Answers" close for Questions

Just opposite to its leading trend of taking over an array of companies and launching a number of new products, Google is planning to close its Internet search and research service that allows users to get questions answered by paid researchers.

The 4-year-old question-and-answer website, called ‘Google Answers’, will no longer be available to connect people with questions to people with answers, the Mountain View Internet giant, said Wednesday.

In its Official Blog, Google said it will, though, stop accepting new questions by the end of the week and stop accepting new answers by the end of the year, but will keep the already posted questions and answers accessible. “Although we won't be accepting any new questions, the existing Qs and As are available. We'll stop accepting new Answers to questions by the end of the year,” the Blog says.

The project was initiated with a rough idea from Google co-founder Larry Page, and in less than 4 months, a small 4-person team turned it into a Q-and-A site. Since the beginning, more than 800 people have participated at this project.

“Google Answers was a great experiment which provided us with a lot of material for developing future products to serve our users. We'll continue to look for new ways to improve the search experience and to connect people to the information they want,” the Blog says.

Google Answers provides online answers to users’ questions on any number of topics by drawing on contributions by human experts, instead of Google's algorithmic search engine’s results.

For the service, Google has enrolled 500 researchers who answer the questions posted online by the people for price. People with question have to pay for a helpful answer. Three-quarters of the question price goes directly to the Researcher who answers the question and the other 25 percent goes to Google to run the service.

Last year, Yahoo Inc. had introduced a similar service called ‘Yahoo Answers’ that also allows users to ask questions but unlike Google, at Yahoo Answer anyone can ask or reply to the question for free.

Google’s move to drop its Q-and-A service has raised speculation among Google critics that Google is afraid of Yahoo’s similar service. Some says the paid service has failed to attract many people, particularly when compared to Yahoo’s similar free service.

According to Yahoo Inc. spokeswoman Melissa Rische, the number of answers in Yahoo Answers’ database grew from 10 million in May to about 60 million now. The site had about 14 million users in October.

With the decision, Google has apparently handed over the market to rival free services.

Despite the fact that Google Answers did not succeed attracting many people, but Google still holds its market leading position in basic Internet search.

"Google is a company fueled by innovation, which to us means trying lots of new things all the time -- and sometimes it means reconsidering our goals for a product," the company said in its Blog posting.