It seems not everything that Google touches becomes an instant success. This week it announced the decision to abandon a 4-year-old service that hired researchers to answer questions on everything.

The search giant did not say why it is closing down the service which was one of Google's first projects that did not deal with search technology. It also may signal Google's intention to refocus on its core search engine, a moneymaking machine that generates virtually all its profits.

The retreat, announced on Google's Web site, represents a rare victory for the rival Yahoo Inc. Google still holds a large lead over Yahoo in basic Internet search but Yahoo seems to have outsmarted Google with a free online answer service that has grown rapidly.

Although it started later, Yahoo's answers service quickly eclipsed Google's. By October, the market share of Yahoo Answers was about 24 times greater than Google's service, estimated Hitwise, a research company.

Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of Search Engine Watch, said the service never achieved the popularity of Yahoo Answers. "Killing off the service certainly will help Google seem like it is focusing efforts toward more needed areas," said Sullivan. "But it still feels like an odd, almost surrendering move in the face of Yahoo Answers being such a success."

The service provided answers to just about any question, from weird ones (Q: How many tyrannosaurs are in a gallon of gasoline? A: 460 gallons equals 1 dinosaur.) to the practical (Q: Why shouldn't you drink water emitted by your air conditioner? A: Air conditioners are breeding grounds for biological spores such as Legionella bacteria).

The service required users to specify how much they would be willing to pay for an answer, which typically ranged from $2 to $200. A stable of 500 researchers where selected by Google to research the answers.

Not just users have noticed the decline in service. Researchers of the once popular service suggested the decline came about because the link was removed from Google's home page, while others said the decline came when Google stopped automatically notifying users when their answers were complete.

"Google Answers was a great experiment which provided us with a lot of material for developing future products to serve our users," software engineers Andrew Fikes and Lexi Baugher wrote in the closure notice. "We'll continue to look for new ways to improve the search experience and to connect people to the information they want."

written by Cristian L.