Introducing the New MSN Search... In my Hotmail inbox this morning

MSN sends out new MSN search to hotmail users

[tstaheli]

Anyone else get this in their inbox this morning?

"New MSN Search. Fast.Clear.Easy. MSN Search wants to help you find answers faster. We've been working hard to give you the improvements you've been looking for:
* A new MSN Search home page with easy navigation to popular MSN Features..." and so on.

[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 11:11 am (utc) on July 27, 2004]

[Brett_Tabke]

Interesting. So essentially, they are starting to advertise the new engine. That says alot about how confident they are of the quality level.

[Namaste]

can't see it live.

[Dayo_UK]

Are they advertising the new engine or the new look that they are also promoting?

We have had confusion before:-

[webmasterworld.com...]

[Receptional]

Yes - at the moment they are really pushing the "New Look", not new results.

But they are gearing up... :)

Dixon.

[graywolf]

Any idea how close this will be to algo they beta'd here a month or so ago?

[Receptional]

Nothing like the beta algo - the results at [beta.search.msn.com...] are totally different to the results at [techpreview.search.msn.com...] I think.

Dixon.

[Namaste]

[imagine-msn.com...]
it clearly shows there that there is no new engine, only better look & layout.

[Brett_Tabke]

I'd swear I got the new results there last night when I was looking at this in email.

[Namaste]

if it was post 4am it dosen't count :)

[sean]

A few weeks ago they were advertising search, especially the toolbar, on local radio, FYI.

[christopher w]

Nothing like the beta algo - the results at [beta.search.msn.com...] are totally different to the results at [techpreview.search.msn.com...] I think.

They definitely appear to be quite different on a bunch of queries I just did.

[edit]"Quite" might be a stretch ;)[/edit]

[clearvision]

What type of results are you getting from the new algo (techpreview)? I noticed one of our newer sites ( only a month old) is VERY well indexed for popular keywords, yet our larger, more "mature" site has lost some of its importance.

One article is the same on both sites and they chose the new site to index? Just trying to understand what the algo is considering important information.

[skippy]

They still need to work on the term “search engine”.

[tenerifejim]

From the results of the techpreview I am seeing very fresh results. Pages 2 or 4 days old, but for the beta, they mirror Google. I really wish they would put the techpreview live now - I'm number 1.

[amznVibe]

Here, use this so you don't have to quote email directly (though I STILL never understood that rule)

7/27 MSNBC.com Launches Newsbot Beta Powered by MSN Search Technology
[microsoft.com...]

Actually that is a NewsBot press release. Not regular search. Hmm...

[satanclaus]

Should make things interesting soon enough. I'm excited.

[christopher w]

but for the beta, they mirror Google.

Do you really see them as a mirror of G? I see them as close but definitely not the same...

[Whoa]

I played with the Tech Preview version a little bit. From an end user perspective, I can say that the results are not good enough to make me have any desire to use this search engine.

It's not spammy results, just not good results.

On multiple test searches, important relevant sites were missing.

I don't think this is their real best effort. I think they are waiting to show something better. This must be just to make their competitors feel overconfident.

[brizad]

The new MSN search is a mixed bag from the tech preview. For my sites some SERPS are better, some worse, and some the same. MUCH different than google though! I am noticing different sites on page #1 as compared to G, Y!, et al.

I am glad to have some more competition in the search world. I just hope that MS doesn't become the behemoth that they are in browsers, OS, etc. They do have a way of squashing the competition!

Isn't this release earlier than expected? Anyone think this has anything to do with the new google IPO?

[beren]

I'm seeing [beta.search.msn.com...] and [techpreview.search.msn.com...] showing different search results.

The beta results appear to be similar, if not identical, to the current MSN results.

The "techpreview" results are horrible for the searches I did. I mean, horrible, and I'm not saying that because my sites don't do well. The results are truly inferior sites.

[steveb]

The announcement is just an admission they are nowhere close to launching their own results. If they were launching their own results this year they wouldn't make some kind of stepping-stone announcement just about the layout.

Of course the preview results are laughably incompetent, nowhere near ready to go, so it was pretty clear already that MSN search is slated for 2005 at the earliest.

[olias]

I am surprised everyone thinks that the msn preview results are so bad, admittedly they badly need to introduce domain clustering to stop some sites holding all top 30 positions for some terms, and it looks to me like keyword-packed-hyphonated-domains are still doing overly well.

Overall i believe the serps are certainly no worse than Yahoo are already supplying - and they are a heck of a lot fresher. In fact at the moment MSN preview has the most up to date versions of pages from one of my main sites - about twice as many as Google.

Having said that i still dont think we will see the new MSN search till 2005.

[sidyadav]

I don't think any major trends have occured.

The current 'official' MSN search is no-different, and the 'techpreview' is the same too.

It's just that MS sent some (all?) of the Hotmail members a mail advertising the new search engine [interface].

Sid

[sit2510]

I think its announcement is premature; I don't find anything appealing about the New MSN Search (except the disappearance of web directories above web pages). The top 3 spots + 1 are sponsored links with prominent outlook and MSN seems to forget about the past failure of others employing such tactics. Many sponsored links on the right, well that's Google initiatives! For the serp, any breakthrough?

I'm quite surprise they launch this announcement without any major innovation.

[hostlead]

The feedback function on techpreview does not work anymore.

HL

[sherwoodseo]

The cynic in me thinks that any "new MSN" announcements are just a clever tactic to ensure that Microsoft stays in investors' minds, and that Google's IPO doesn't suck money out of Microsoft stock.

[isitreal]

techpreview is getting very fresh results, it's got stuff I changed only 4-5 days ago indexed already. Still problems with returning multiple results for same site though.

[85er]

What do you think about their color scheme? I like their front page and hate their results pages

[steve40]

Hmmm well like Yahoo MSN techpreview appears to have taken steps back and likes doorway style pages with less content the better you score , so doorway pages in some form will be the norm

Feel sorry for joe searcher 2 clicks to get to the what they were searching for but so be it but my role is to get visitors to pages and if it means creating whole new layer of pages for Y and MSN so be it
steve