MSN search beta is live

[msgraph]

[search.msn.com...]

Looks like the top 3 ppc ads are MSN supplied, with Overture taking up the 4th and ads on the right side. Not very wise since I see the same site listed twice in the 3rd and 4th spots.

The rest is Ink.

[turk182]

I like the look, but not the serps: it looks like meta description is the most important thing determining the page ranking. You have only to read pages summaries: they are pages meta descriptions.

[pmac]

Slick look, a massive improvement.

[makemetop]

Looks pretty good, nice and clean.

>The forth listing (the first in the 'web directory section)....

The web directory section (if you can see it) is not Inktomi. Hence your statement slanging INK results is (in this case) misplaced!

As I can't see the directory listings the #4 site (which is the #1 INK result) happens to be google.com!

[nolen1]

"Results look unique for me and I'm lovin'it! Nice and clean layout, good relevancy. First time when using MSN is a pleasant experience. Hope this sticks."

I feel the same way.

[EquityMind]

Great look, I like the distinction between paid and natural search. Anyone have an idea when they will switch to this new format?

EquityMind

[Allergic]

Wow... Amazing results for MS. Despite all the; Feature sites, Web Pages, Popular, etc.... I never saw so much good results in a page of MSN search. They tweak something!

[EquityMind]

I'm not seeing featured sites in queries that I do side by side in normal search and beta search. Selective filtering of featured sites?

I'm also seing results powered by Encarta (Microsoft) to define terms similar to Google.

EquityMind

[258cib]

Check out the city where you live. Especially small towns. Nothing but spam. And I did a check with g and ask and their SERPs were much much better. (I hadn't checked Ask in a while and I was impressed.)

I have to agree with Turk. INK junk.

[Rugles]

It is different but still provides poor results. This is not an improvement and will steal zero eyeballs from google.

I give it:

C-

[dnbjason]

I like the results, pretty close to Google.

I can say one thing for sure, there results are mainly based on Anchor Text!

[mfishy]

<<there results are mainly based on Anchor Text!>>

Not to the extent of Google, but similar.

To further clarify what makemetop state - if you are seeing "web directory" results that is not INK but looksmart. "web pages" is INK and that is what most are seeing below the sponsored results.

If they keep this format that will be a massive improvement as to their 3-25 pages of paid results before.

[skipfactor]

>>zero eyeballs

With them finally abandoning 'web directory' pages for days, Mr. Consumer will think it is or won't care if it's not Google when he types a search query into:

-currently any Office 2003 app
-the defaulted IE address bar
-the soon-to-be bundled-into-everything MSN toolbar
-and wherever Longhorn decides to plop little boxes

plenty-O-eyeballs

[caveman]

Hmmm, that layout...seems...oddly familiar. Now where have I seen that before... ;-)

Anyone remember that thread a few months back in which some felt that *if* G continued on it's current (crash) course (as they have), some other smart SE might be wise to offer a product similar in look and content to the old G...i.e., the product that got them to the top?

What's not to like?

[powerstar]

I don't see any PFI pages on the beta. Anybody else?

[woop01]

Those are pretty good based on the terms I target. Where I'm lower, quite honeslty I deserve to be, I shouldn't be as high as I am in Google for some of those terms. The differnce is, there are legit results around me in all the searches.

[keyplyr]

Looks exactly like it always has, including the Look$mart garbage directory.

[Allergic]

Going out since my last post from here in quebec. My first post on the result I got was far away from the crap of Inktomi I got now.

[HitProf]

>I think someone is seeing something different than a few of us are.

I'm seeing the same WEB results on both beta and search but the DIRECTORY sites are different.
BETA #1 links to Google but LIVE links to an adult site?

added: I'm seeing totally different results in IE and Opera.

[percentages]

The MSN beta site looks great, very clean (well they could remove all the OV Ads;)), no "Featured Sites", no L$ directory, and a much clearer distinction between sponsors and true SERPs....good job MSN :)

I'm still seeing the oldish (14 days) style page at msn.com (no L$, but the older layout). I hope the beta rolls out to everyone ASAP.

[turk182]

dnbjason,

I cannot see anchor text anywhere on page summaries. I only see page meta descriptions (ink garbage). You can check these two searches, one against ask (via hotbot.com) and the other against beta.search.msn.com. The results are exactly the same in a slightly different order:
hotbot [hotbot.com]
beta.msn [beta.search.msn.com]

I know one search is not representative, but other searches present the same problems.

[makemetop]

What on earth is wrong with using the meta description tag? At least you are in control of what shows!

Observations. I can't see any PFI listings currently. I also see that sites that are in the MSN directory (ex-L$) (nothing to do with the web directory results) as well as in the INK DB show the directory description as the first description line on the result. Sort of like Yahoo, but with the on-page title attribute showing instead of the directory listing title, followed by the directory description, followed by a snippet.

[turk182]

What on earth is wrong with using the meta description tag? At least you are in control of what shows!

Nothing wrong if we were in the 90's, long before one search engine we all know decided to do things in a different (not always better) way, but nowadays I don't want pages ranked upon their description (spam, spam, spam....).

[beakertrail]

The MSN Beta Search can be found at:
http://beta.search.msn.com/ [beta.search.msn.com]

Beaker

[makemetop]

>nowadays I don't want pages ranked upon their description..

Name me one major search engine that doesn't use the description tag. And don't say Google, because they do!

Name me one search engine that ranks purely on the description tag. And don't say Inktomi because they don't!

So, no search engine just ranks on the description tag!

[albert]

When visiting the beta a survey came up asking questions about favorite SE and stuff.

Anybody else seen it?

[turk182]

What I'm saying is that you could rank well in Google without meta description, but it's very difficult to do the same in ink: if you have no meta description, you rank worse. I've checked it.

Name me one major search engine that doesn't use the description tag. And don't say Google, because they do!

Alltheweb shows descriptions, but it marks them as "description", and after the page summary created by itself.

Google shows summaries in most cases, not descriptions.

[Trodda]

Oooh, this is not good. #1 on MSN for main keyword, and #2 on the Beta. What gives?

[sabai]

I don't see any PFI pages on the beta. Anybody else?

I don't see PFI pages too, only free inktomi

[woop01]

Those that are seeing the normal MSN stuff, aren't seeing what people are talking about.

[ogletree]

Thats funny when you type in google the first web page results is ww.google.com/search. ww.google.com has 48 backlinks. Google even made that a dns entry. It works. When I ping it I get Pinging www.google.akadns.net [216.239.39.104] which is a DC datacenter. Does anybody get something different.