New MSN Search Engine: How Good is it?

If you have an online business or you just use Internet as one of your marketing tools, you know that how important are the search engines in your quest to get more targeted visitors to your website. The changes in search engine field can have unexpected outcome for your online endeavors. That's why it is important to be well-informed on impending progress in this sphere.

Microsoft has recently come out with the latest beta version of its much touted search engine. Supported by 5 billion indexed pages, it is poised to become one of the most powerful search engines in the market. Right now MSN is using Yahoo provided search results for queries done through its search page, which it's planning to change somewhere in early next year with its own. You can check out the search engine at http://beta.search.msn.com .

Google's immense success and profitable business model enticed Microsoft and others to look into lucrative search engine market seriously. Amazon, for example, has recently launched its web search site A9.com. Today, Google carries out almost 50 percent of all searches on the Internet. Yahoo with 24 percent of the market share is trailing in a distant second place. MSN with 14 percent lags far behind from the competitors ? a situation, which won't be very easy to change.

However, Microsoft has a long history of copying booming products; make their replicas some times, arguably, better then the originals, and clinch larger portion of the market shares. Microsoft has successfully done this to Borland's dominance of programming languages in the early days. The list of victims continued with once utterly popular word processor ?WordPerfect, market dominant spreadsheet ? Lotus 1-2-3, Novell's Netware and finally Netscape. Since 90 percents of all personal computers run on Windows, Microsoft gets an extra edge against its competitors, which it's capable of exploiting very effectively.

What is new in MSN search?

This version of MSN search incorporated several interesting features, which other search engines are lacking at this moment.

Direct answers to plain language factual searches

Unlike Google or Yahoo, Askjeeves has better ability to find answers to direct plain language searches. MSN search has taken this one step further by adding Microsoft's Encarta reference tools to its features. Ask, what is the capital of Russia? You will get the right answer at the beginning of the result page. Questions like "What is the size of a Blue whale?" also brings in exact answer. No doubt, students will love this feature as it makes a lot easier for them to get specific answers to the questions related to facts and figures.

Near me

Microsoft's new search engine includes a ''near me'' button that helps users find websites for a given location. In this release, this works only in United States.

Once you press this button MSN search figures out where are you located using your computer's IP address. However, this can be easily superseded by changing setting preferences. This is important if you are located in New York and looking for something near Boston.

Search Builder

In other search engines, if you would like to customize your search you have to use advance search options from a separate page. MSN search has made it a lot easier for average users by adding the ability of customization right on the search box.

Once you click on the Search Builder from the link right underneath of the search box a drop down menu will open. Initially, the menu might look a little confusing; with little patience you will be able to use available great features easily.

The tool "search terms" allows you to add Boolean search options. Site/ Domain tool is used for limiting a search to specific site or domain, or excluding them from your query. "Links to" tool helps you make your query within the sites linked to a specific site. Country/ region and language options are required to make geography or language specific searches.

The best option from this group of features is the "Result Ranking". This option allows you to refine searches and give you a better control over the search result by using a set of three bars. By sliding the bars up and down you choose whether you want to see more of exact match or approximate match, more popular or less popular, static or dynamic pages as search results. You can generate an impressive range of results for a single query thanks to this option. This could be very useful for some types of searches. For example: if you are looking for news based pages, you might prefer to choose more dynamic pages rather than static ones.

Preference setting

Most notable options on the setting page are "Safe Search" ? ability to filter out sexually explicit images and texts, and ability to fix the number of results displayed from one particular site.

Relevancy

Many reviewers claim that if you compare the search results with Google, MSN search engine "falls short" in relevancy. However, my results showed otherwise.

I ran a search on the phrase "trade leads". The results from both the search engines were very relevant. The only difference in MSN I noticed is our http://trade-leads.rusbiz.com managed to turn up on the first page. But, a search on the word "e-catalog" was brought better ? more relevant ? results on MSN then Google. This time too I was happy to see http://e-catalog.rusbiz.com on the first page of MSN search results.

Conclusion

If you consider all the new features of MSN that Google does not have yet, its ability to cover natural language queries, quality level and relevance of results, ability to refine searches, there is no doubt that MSN search engine is as good as Google.

Nowshade Kabir is the founder, primary developer and present CEO of Rusbiz.com. A Ph. D. in Information Technology, he has wide experience in Business Consulting, International Trade and Web Marketing. Rusbiz is a Global B2B Emarketplace with solutions to start and run online business. You can contact him at mailto:nowshade[at]rusbiz.com

---

Which SEO Company/Firm to Choose for SEO Services?

In the last 2-3 years many new companies have mushroomed,... Read More

Keyword Popularity Check

Before using keywords for your site, it is always better... Read More

Stay In The Know With Google SMS

The Short Messaging Service (SMS) from Google sends short, quick,... Read More

5 Qualities to Look for in a Search Engine Optimization Program for Your Website

These days with millions of websites out there, you need... Read More

SEO Trade Secrets - 8 Great Tools for Search Engine Optimization

About 80% of website traffic comes through search engines. And... Read More

Understanding Googles Algorithm

What is the Google Algorithm?An algorithm is a mathematical equation... Read More

PageRank for Websites: Is There More to the Web?

Google's PageRank has been around for years, and in the... Read More

The Search Engine Of The Future: Mobility Has A Pricetag

We all know the ease of using a search engine... Read More

Forget SEO ? It?s All About Conversion!

Which SEO hat do you wear? Is it white or... Read More

Google WebSearch? & Google Adsense - Yahoo!

The makers of the world renowned search engine, Google, have... Read More

Banned from Google and Wondering Why?

There are those that get on the computer one night... Read More

Google Sitemaps Explained - How To Use Google Sitemaps

Three Ways To Index Your Site With Google Sitemaps [Difficult,... Read More

Google?s Siren Call ? Is It Crashing Your Search Engine Marketing?

It's difficult to dispute the rational behind the rant since... Read More

Is Page Not Found Making Google Tell The World Site Not Found?

Search Engines are hard to tame, that's for sure. But... Read More

Without Conversion Rates You Don’t Know If You’re Mickey Mouse Or Mickey Mantle

I couldn’t agree more with the headline of this article... Read More

Search Engine Marketing 101 For Corporate Sites

When most people want to find something on the web,... Read More

Expert Help From Google Answers

Web users turn to search engines for answers to their... Read More

The Google Phenomenon: Greatest Hits Collection

As my readers know, I've been one of Google's harshest... Read More

SEO and Directories

If you are a webmaster, then you've probably submitted your... Read More

Search Engine Optimization Tips For 2005 - Part Two

Welcome to the second part of our series of articles... Read More

The Biggest SEO Scam of All

While there are many ethical SEO firms serving Internet users... Read More

Press Releases Can Increase Search Engine Positioning

When you write a press release, what is your ultimate... Read More

SEO Expert Guide - Ongoing Monitoring of Results (part 9/10)

In the Guide, you have, so far, learnt how to... Read More

Keywords ? Key For All Doors

Keyword research is certainly the most important phase in Search... Read More

The Benefits of Organic SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

If you're going to sell any type of product or... Read More

Google vs. Yahoo -- How To Rank High On Each One

Google likes incoming links, especially links from high-ranking, on-topic pages... Read More

The Power of Topic Specific Search

What are Topical Search Engines?Simply put, topical search engines are... Read More

How to Choose Keywords to Theme Your Pages and Boost Your Traffic

One of the most frequent questions I get asked is... Read More

Google Slavery...Old Habits Die Hard

For the first few months after Yahoo decided to go... Read More

Do You Have a Bad SEO Company, or Are You Just a Bad Client?

I admit it, our SEO services are pretty bad.Speaking of... Read More

SEO Expert Guide - Paid Site Promotion (Marketing) (part 7/10)

In parts 1 - 6 you learnt how to develop... Read More

Google has an Achilles Heal - Will Their Competitors Notice?

Even though Google Revenues continue to soar, the hidden problem... Read More

Are Your Keywords Making Money for You?

I built my website, it's perfect. My chosen subject of... Read More