"Ask has always been a leader, a pioneer in universal search and pushed the envelope when it comes to that, so it stands a good chance to see additional gains in market share," Andrews said.

Andrews also liked the new Q&A search functionality, as well as the expanded repositories of structured data that Ask.com can tap to deliver direct answers to queries. "It's going to be difficult with just one announcement and some new features to overtake Google, but that doesn't mean Ask shouldn't try," he said. "Based on our research, the strategy of delivering richer search results is the right one."