John Battelle:

"the rumors are flying again about Jeeves being in play. CBS Marketwatch is fueling them, saying AOL might buy the company and drop Google. I don't think so, but you never know"

Certainly if Ask Jeeves don't get bought they look very lonely out there as a destination site powered by Google ads revenue. They are less vulnerable than Looksmart in that there is little incentive for Google to ditch them as a channel in the same way that MSN ditched Looksmart as a provider (although Google have leverage in terms of split on ad revenue).

I agree with John that they won't get bought by AOL. They have traffic and a search product but their ad network is provided by Google. AOL have more traffic and search, despite the hype, is a commodity. AOL would be better off with an ad network.