MSN finally released the BETA version of its search engine : Preview here.

"This is our new engine that we've built from the ground up," said Justin Osmer, product manager for MSN Search. Released in beta form, this search technology is expected to replace Yahoo search results still in place at MSN sometime later this year or early next year.

Read an indepth article about MSN's new search engine at SearchEngineWatch.


But hey, when I tried searching for the term pulsetoday here's what I consistently got:

But the frontpage sure looks like something that starts with g and ends with e

Well I did a few searches on it. Specifically searches that lead me to spam on Google. You know sites that are simply links to other sites but no real information of their own. Usually built on expired domains to get traffic.

On MSN, it actually gave me results. Results I could use and were relevant to my query. Really hope they give Google a run for their money. Maybe Google will fix their algorithm and weed out the garbage if they have more competition. Right now it seems like they don't care what the results are as long as they can match a few ads to the keywords.

As for the interface, there is only so much you can do for a standard search engine. Reminds me very much of the search engines of yesteryear before they all went to portals. Google was just the first to go retro because they didn't have anything else to offer.

Google has never been an issue to me, always found what I needed to find. I would be suprised if they give Google a run for their money because Mico$oft release to many products without thought of what they do next, like Bush in Iraq, no plan.

Google has been developed and re-developed, altered, tuned and so forth for years, MSN creating a search engine in a few months shouldn't be viewed as 'strong' competition just yet. At least not yet, no doubt Google are watching them though.

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Paul B. Riddick

Actually, Microsoft is very purposeful in everything they do. This is how they have created the #2 Online Provider in 4 years, the #2 Game Console in 2 years, the #1 online gaming platform in less than 1 year. Their purpose is even how they continue to hold leads in every category they compete in. This not only includes personal computers and gaming consoles but it includes portable computing, media servers (what your cable provider uses for on-demand movies), satellite communications, internet access and more.

When they launch their search engine officially, it will automatically gain 10 times as much traffic as Google gets in a day, they are integrating it with their own content which includes properties such as MSNBC, Expedia and Encarta. Google has no content of their own nor do they have plans to create some. Nor do they have the financial resources in the bank to truly compete. Microsoft can easily invest $50 Billion dollars in their search engine technology and still have more money than Google. Doubt they will have to though since they already have the upperhand in traffic and potential audience. Now they just have to do is work on their index and relevancy.

Hm. MSN is interesting. Naturally I searched for my main keyword I'm targeting to compare how I'm sitting on MSN in relation to Google. The keyword is "Photoshop tutorials" if you want to check it out for yourself. I'm #1 on Google and apparently I'm #1 and #2 on MSN... with the same site. They treat good-tutorials.com and www.good-tutorials.com as the same page, which is interesting.

I guess I don't like it. It might be because it's not Google, since I like Google quite a bit. But the other thing I don't like is that their ads are too similar to the results, which makes it hard to easily pick out the sites. Good for MSN's ad revenue, bad for users.

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MSN = unlimited budget. They are doing this just for fun I would think. They could buy google in one foul swoop.

Saying that I would watch for MSN to become more popular over the coming years, if they can break google's branding, which will be very hard.

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Image Freak

Aren't good-tutorials.com and www.good-tutorials.com the same website? If the domains and the content are the same then consider them the same. Seems like a no brainer. But then again, that is why MSN Search is still in beta. I am sure there are issues that still need to be resolved.

Actually, any time Microsoft wishes to buy something it has to be reviewed by the courts under law. Microsoft actually sees Online Distributed Computing as the future so I don't think this is simply for fun. It represents a new revenue stream to keep the company strong.

I see it as a way of them leveraging the traffic they already get. Microsoft's MSN is the second largest trafficked site in the world, second only AOL's. Currently, they contract out searching to several different companies. By bringing this inhouse, they can control costs and increase revenues from search. They are also use it to tie into existing content as I said. If you ask the search engine a question such as "What is the capital of France?", it will link to the answer in Encarta. This creates circular traffic which will allow increasing ad revenues.

Microsoft is really a solutions company. Software happens to be one of those solutions and this is another.

But beating out the branding of the name Google. I don't care how good of a product they are offering, if they can't make a presence then their money is not well spent.

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Image Freak

Microsoft already has the presence via MSN.. Second most visited website in the world, over 10 million customers. Plus they have a strategic alliance with the second largest Telecom company in the US, Verizon. This gives them access to millions of new users. MSN is the brand. It has been developed over 4 years. It already gets more traffic than Google every month and it has a search box on each of its million plus pages.

How big of a brand do you really think Google is? The majority of their money comes from selling search results to other companies like AOL/Netscape. It doesn't come from their own website and services. Sure they are big but not as big as you would seem to think. Google is currently positioning itself as an Advertising firm. Everything they do is geared to serving advertising whether it is search, free email, or anything else. Microsoft, as I already said, provides solutions. Very different takes on things.

In the end, there will be three primary search engine companies - Yahoo, Microsoft and Google. Google actuallly has the most to lose because they have nothing else. The others are diversified companies with multiple revenue streams.