I’m not sure if this is new or if I just noticed it, but AskJeeves allows you to preview certain sites in their search results before deciding to click on the link. Type in your search and some results will show a pair of binoculars. Put your mouse over that image and a preview image of the site appears.
This is a pretty nifty feature, and offers one more point of elimination when determining what sites to click into or not. Currently, the title is the primary point, if the title isn’t relevant then its a pass or look more closely at the description. Now, you can get a quick preview of the site to help determine if its worth clicking through.
while the preview isn’t big enough to allow you to read any content, you can get a sense of the professional level of the site and if it meets your criteria in that regard.
If nothing else, this feature should encourage site owners to update their sites if they are still lacking good quality designs. A poorly designed site, shown in a preview, could eliminate quite a lot of click-throughs before the visitor even gets a chance to read your content.
While we are on the subject of AskJeeves, I also noticed that you can “save” certain results for later. This can be quite a time saver. If you are scanning results and see several sites that look like they will provide the info you need you can hit the save link for each one, then go to MyJeeves and view your saved results one at a time. It can also be helpful if you find a site worth keeping access to. Save it and then go back to MyJeeves at your convenience to pull it up anytime. Other cool features are the ability to add a personal note to each saved result as well as the ability to file your saved results in folders.
MyJeeves is in Beta mode, but it certainly looks promising for search personalization.