since you have asked it Kiddo96, i think you can use one regex match instead 2

this is a simple example, and i added the $replace for " to "
and a check to check if the results match

alias ask {
  if $1 {
    if $sock(ask) {
      sockclose $v1
    }
    sockopen ask www.ask.com 80
    sockmark ask $1-
  }
  else {
    echo -a 04Error! Incorrect syntax.
  }
}
on *:sockopen:ask:{
  var %x = sockwrite -nt $sockname 
  %x GET /web?qsrc=1&o=0&l=dir&q= $+ $urlencode($sock($sockname).mark) HTTP/1.1
  %x Host: www.ask.com
  %x Connection: close
  %x
}
on *:sockread:ask:{
  var %askreader
  sockread %askreader
  if $regex(%askreader,/<div\s(?:id="r\d+_a"|class="txt3 abstract")\s(?:class="txt3 abstract"|id="r\d+_a")>(.+)(?:<\/div>|<\/span>)|<span class="answers_ui_t\d+">(.+)<\/span>/U) {
    echo -a 09 $+ $char_r($replace($regml(1),<b>,,</b>,,&quot;,"))
    sockclose $sockname
  }  
  if (*did not match* iswm %askreader) { echo -ag 09 Your search for $qt($sock($sockname).mark) did not match with any Web results. | sockclose $sockname 
  }
}
alias urlencode return $regsubex($1,/(\W)/gS,% $+ $base($asc(\1),10,16,2)))
alias char_r return $regsubex($1-,/&#(\d+);/g,$chr(\1))

i didnt tried another thing, but i think we can improve a lot
if i think in something i will post it