Ask Jeeves puts research center in Italy

Ask Jeeves Inc. has opened a research center in Pisa, Italy, that the search engine operator hopes will serve as its European research and development hub and contribute to the enhancement of the company’s products and services worldwide.

Ask Jeeves has picked Antonio Gulli, creator of Italian search engine Arianna, to lead the Pisa center, whose staff has expertise in areas such as machine learning, social networking, data mining and information retrieval, the Oakland, California, company said Monday.

The Pisa center will work with the company’s U.S. research facilities in Campbell, California, and Piscataway, New Jersey. Ask Jeeves’ recent moves in Europe include the launch of versions of its search engine Web site for Spain and Germany.

Search engine operators have been strengthening their research organizations, as the market for paid search advertising continues to grow. These efforts have included setting up centers abroad, in order to attract talented researchers who aren’t based in the U.S.

For example, Yahoo Inc. last month extended its research operations to Europe and Latin America with the opening of centers in Barcelona and Santiago, Chile.