Google has made the occasional minor tweak but until recently, its search-results pages looked a lot like they always have. Its upstart competitor, Ask.com, took greater strides last year with cool features such as previews of the pages it listed, lots of summary information at the top of the page and prominent suggestions for narrowing or broadening searches.

Now, Google and Ask each have rolled out new ways of presenting search results. Google’s approach, which it calls “universal search,” is a modest thing, a first step in what it says will be a long effort to break down barriers between different types of information a user may be seeking, such as Web links, images and news.

But Ask’s new system, called “Ask3D,” is a much bolder and better advance in unifying different kinds of results and presenting them in a more effective manner. It shows, once again, that Ask places a higher priority than its competitors do on making search results easy to navigate and use.

Both new systems are now the defaults on the search sites. You don’t have to do anything special to use them. Indeed, Google’s change is so subtle you may not even notice it for some searches.

Both of the new systems are designed to spare users the extra steps needed in the past to view different types of content related to the same search term. But Google combines these different types of content into one list. Ask puts them on one page in separate sections, which I find to be the superior approach, because each type of result is displayed more effectively; it’s easier to see at a glance what you have.

In the old systems, if you were searching for, say, “Red Sox,” you’d have to do separate searches for Web pages, news, images and so forth.

To make this simpler, Google’s universal search now groups these different kinds of results within its single, familiar main list of results. As I write this, a Google search for “Red Sox” includes not only Web links, but also an entry called “News Results for Red Sox” with the latest headlines about the team and a news photo. At the top of the page, under the Google logo, are the two most relevant search categories — in this case, Web and News — if you want to separate types of results.

A Google universal search for a prominent person might bring up images at the top — something Google has been doing for a while — but also a video, which can be played without leaving the search page, a very nice feature. To see an example, search on “I Have a Dream,” to view the famous Martin Luther King speech without leaving the page. At the bottom of the page is a list of related searches.

But Ask3D goes much further. Instead of sticking with a single list of search results that mixes various types of material, it now presents results in a page divided into three panels. The largest, middle panel still contains Web links (and a few ads). But it is no longer topped by the search box and links to other sections of the search engine. Instead, where possible, it is topped by a set of salient facts or direct links to salient facts.

The thinner left panel contains the search box and links to other sections of Ask, but mainly it displays suggestions for refining your search, or for making related searches.

A somewhat wider right panel contains search results that go beyond Web links, such as images, news headlines, encyclopedia articles, videos, weather information, local time and, where relevant, music clips you can play without leaving the page.

A search for “Red Sox” in the new Ask3D, for example, has a summary box at the top of the main panel with direct links to Scores, Schedule, Stats and more. In the right panel, there are general images, news photos, an encyclopedia article on the team, videos and headlines. As always, the left panel shows suggestions for how to narrow or broaden the search.

If you hover over the image thumbnails, they enlarge. If you hover over the video thumbnails, they play, albeit without sound. For each of the right-panel content categories, you can even launch a further search without leaving the page just by clicking on a magnifying-glass icon.

If you search Ask for “James Taylor,” you get a biography at the top and, at the right, playable clips from “Fire and Rain,” “You’ve Got a Friend” and “Sweet Baby James.”

Ask also now gives you larger previews of the pages it lists, visible by just hovering over a binocular icon. And you can now get to the advanced search panel without leaving the page.

Google deserves credit for universal search, which I’m sure will get better. But Ask’s new design is much more compelling and well worth a try.

• Email me at mossberg@wsj.com. Find all my columns and videos online free at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

That’s also true in high tech. Every so often, an underestimated contender rises up to compete with a champion play for play, or even to beat the champ. Something like that is happening in the search business.

Ask Jeeves, a largely failed search service, has been overhauled and renamed Ask.com. I’ve been testing the new Ask.com against the search champ, Google. I’ve found that in terms of relevant results and ease of use, Ask holds its own with Google, and even beats the champ on some searches. It has some very nice features Google lacks, including previews of the sites it finds, an easy way to narrow or broaden your search results, and frequent top-of-the-screen answers that lead you directly to core information.

Ask.com is starting from a low ranking. According to a recent study, Ask has only about 6% of the search market, compared with 41% for Google and 29% for Yahoo. Yet, Ask.com is improving fast, and is capable of playing above its ranking.

In its old incarnation, Ask Jeeves, I never could recommend the service. It was cluttered with ads that were too easily confused with real search results and that made the real results hard to find. And it was based on a questionable promise — that it could answer queries stated as English-language questions. While it did that in some cases, it failed in many others.

This year, the name has been changed and the logo, a cartoon butler named Jeeves, has been axed. The whole question-answering approach is now de-emphasized.

But the overhaul has been far more than just marketing. Ads have been cut back to just three at the top and five at the bottom of each page, and they run on a colored background so you know they’re not real search results. Instead of running ads down the right side of the page, as Google does, Ask uses that space to help the user refine search results.

In general, Ask’s search-results pages are richer and better organized than typical Google results, and they give greater priority to content over ads.

Here’s an example. I searched for Ted Williams, the Red Sox outfielder who was the greatest hitter of all time. In Google, I got a plain results page topped by a link to the official site on Williams, with a few ads down the right side for Williams-related items.

In Ask.com, the top of the page, above the ads, featured a Smart Answer box that included a picture of Ted, an excerpt from a biography, direct links to his official site, an encyclopedia article and other images of him.

Down the side, where Google ran ads, Ask.com had links to many related topics that could narrow or broaden my search, a feature called Zoom. These suggested topics included the Red Sox, Fenway Park and even Cryonics, a controversial technique for freezing the dead that was used on Williams after he passed away. There were also entries for Ted’s rivals, like Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle.

Google and Yahoo have features similar to Ask’s Smart Answer, but Ask uses it much more often and with better effect.

Other search engines have tried things similar to Ask’s Zoom, but I found Ask’s implementation to be better than any other I’ve tested.

In the search results on my Ted Williams query, Ask listed links that were at least as relevant as Google’s. Unlike Google, Ask allowed me to preview most of the links without leaving the search-results page. To use this feature, called Binoculars, I just moused over a small icon of binoculars in each result and a miniature image of the page popped up.

I did many other searches, with roughly similar results. Google usually did a good job, but Ask usually did just as well, and its added features made the results more valuable. In a search for a particular digital camera, Ask’s page was topped by a picture of the camera, with links to reviews and price comparisons. Google’s page was topped by ads, followed by links to specific shopping sites.

In a search on the word Providence, Google offered a map link at the top, then a link to Providence College. Ask featured a Smart Answer box with the start of an encyclopedia article on the Rhode Island capital, and a drop-down list of links to other cities named Providence and to the TV show of that name.

Ask also allows you to save any entry in its search results to a special page called MyStuff. You can also save pictures, and even upload your browser bookmarks, then organize everything into folders.

Google is still great, and I’m not suggesting everyone abandon it. But Ask.com is well worth a try if you want to benefit from some features that go beyond Google. Like the George Mason basketball team, it just may surprise you.

• Email me at mossberg@wsj.com.