Forum Moderators: mack
What is the beta? As WebGuerilla has pointed out the beta is an evolution of our Technology Preview. As you can tell we made major enhancements to the user interface and added a bunch of new features. We still have work to do, however, to get [search.msn.com...] to be able to use our new algorithmic search results that are available at [beta.search.msn.com...] .
How does one get into the results? All of our web results are generated algorithmically so you cannot buy your way into the index. We will not try and teach site optimization to you guys – assume you have that covered :) If you want to submit your URL to us you can do that at [beta.search.msn.com...] .
Also regarding relevance, there has been some speculation on some online forums about MSNBot using Google search result pages to build our index. Let us set the record straight – that is simply not true. We respect robots.txt and as a result we will not crawl Google’s search result pages.
With regards to site availability that is something we are continuously working on. Oshoma Momoh, a General Manager in the MSN Search team, posted a blurb about this on the MSN Search blog -- [blogs.msdn.com...] .
Finally some folks have asked why we don’t just turn this on for all users right now? We love the words of encouragement, however, we have a number of bugs that we need to fix and we need to make sure that we can run the service with great performance and deliver high quality results. We will get there.
Please keep the feedback and constructive criticism coming – we appreciate all of it.
- msndude (msd)
:-)
I agree that the results are not quite ready.. but making that one work shouldn;t be too difficult!
Numerous sites were ravished by G$'s deliberately dishonest SERPs. But those who were not so affected usually like to insult and mock the victims as if whiners.So now that the M$ beta reveals just how dishonest the G$ SERPs are -- as many white hat G$-stripped sites are now appearing in the M$ beta SERPs where they should be -- does it seem that those mocking accusers are now the real whiners? In the face of actual HONEST SERPs, are they now the ones who are they epitome of what they had arrogantly enjoyed mocking?
Maybe someone should do like they did and arrogantly tell them to "stop whining and just buck up" to go figure out their SEO for better placement in the (currently) HONEST SERPs of the M$ beta. Or, just tell them some other similarly and extremely insulting statement, just like they've often used against the G$- victims.
Sweet justice.
And it could be very sweet justice when this M$ beta -- with its currently HONEST SERPs -- gives G$ the thrashing with a splintery two-by-four on its raw flesh that the betraying G$ so deserves.
<Moderated by Dixon - changed use of language>
[edited by: Receptional at 5:02 pm (utc) on Nov. 24, 2004]
I appreciate the reasoning behind the moderator's editing the above post I made.
In doing the best that one could do in that situation, the resulting impact of the edited message did cause it to lose a little bit of its meaning and intent.
There are those who are "ravished" and those who are not. The idea of "non-ravished" individuals attacking "ravished" individuals -- just because the attackers themselves never saw the "ravishing" -- is as offensive as if the attackers also "ravished" the victims AGAIN.
As matter of clarity as to what word I actually used (because I never use bad or foul-mouth language), one need only to look up the replacement word "ravished."
Even G$ offers a link with the definition.
[google.com...]
My heart is so full with compassion for all "ravished" victims.
And I do understand and appreciate the moderator's attempt to find a happy medium in this situation.
I am interested in why you chose PicSearch for your image search. Yahoo search is clearly the leader (o.k., I am biased :-), in image search today. Why fund a new, less relevant, smaller, less fresh, company to enter a space that you will eventually want to dominate.
Image search comprises at least 15-20% of all search clicks today, and will become increasingly important in certain market segments (celebs and pop culture, sports, travel, shopping, adult, TV) over the next couple years, especially as broadband takes off. Both Google and Yahoo provide better product today, why outsource to PicSearch for your results?
Hello msndude.
I am interested in why you chose PicSearch for your image search.
I guess MSN didn't have the time to create their own image search engine, but are desperate to launch their new service at the earliest, hence
- outsource it in the initial stages (just like PPC is outsourced to overture)
- then eventually make their own system
- replace it!
Why fund a new, less relevant, smaller, less fresh, company to enter a space that you will eventually want to dominate
Because if it works they'll buy it to save time? Just a hunch ;)
Duplicate domains in the same results.
Too much emphasis on keywords in domains instead of which sites are "important" Hyphonated keyword packed domain names go to the top.
.com and other country domains mixed in with non US country specific searches.
Sites with .com and other domains getting double inclusions.
It's not as good as the present MSN SERP's if they go live with this I'm buying shares in Google.
Powdork gave this example in a recent thread:
search for: breast cancer foundation of arizona
There is only one website and organization with this official name, yet they cannot be found on Google and can be found at the top of every other engine.
I know MSN has distributed (either directly or indirectly)some finely crafted articles in the past that got good national distribution in the past. I think some negative articles could help create a public buzz.
"Google it up" or "just Google it" has become a phrase people use to refer to searching for something on the internet. Word of mouth is very powerful, maybe some articles could get people talking about what they can't find on google.
The only authority site in my keyword, as linked by media, universities, etc. cannot even get below 50 anymore in G$. And a "pro-keyword.com" media site -- that is even listed in the G$ NEWS service -- is 100s higher than 500 (yes, five hundred) in the dishonest natural SERPs of G$.
You can't get any more absurd than that. But maybe G$ will find a way to outdo itself and get even worse.
One thing's for sure if the results in some areas ARE off key they'll fix it as soon as they can because the share price depends almost entirely upon their reputation.
Google may look god to you, probably due to your statement above, but the fact is that many authority sites are completely missing, the url problems, page jacking, false duplicates, etc. are causing this.
How good would you think google was if you were looking for one of those authority sites and couldn't find it?
If someone is searching for the exact name of an organization and can't find it in google, though it used to be #1 and they can find it on other search engines, they will eventually stop even trying to find it on google.
This is a great time for msn to use this type of info in nationally distributed articles written by a third party.
Looking for something important? Don't use Google you may never find it!
"all search engines are struggling with this"
Oh really! lets go msn
Launch this thing already MSN!
GO MSN you have my full support! Launch already will ya? :>~
I can tell you that now Google and Yahoo don't even come close to MSN Beta as a tool to find recent and relevant products and companies. MSN Beta has literally halved the time it takes us to find products and companies. This is because of two main reasons:
1.MSN Beta displays recent websites in its results
2.MSN Beta also displays smaller websites (which sometimes offer the most relevant products)
There is no doubt that in our specialist industry (an area in Travel), which is quite large, MSN Beta is miles ahead.
I'm not about to do tests all day in other areas (that I know nothing about) so I assume those who say Google still has the best results are doing just this. Either that or they are ignoring MSN Beta's superiority because their sites rank well with Google. Or maybe it is only the Travel industry that MSN provides the best results...? :-)
Being in the travel biz as well, I can say that the new MSN search is very friendly to our site. We also do very very well in Google (about 85% of our se traffic comes from Google).
The serps in the new MSN beta have us in even better places then Google does. We are almost entirely ignored by Yahoo, only serps for long phrases show our site in Y while we average 6th place for our most important keywords in Google with many showing up in 1st or 2nd position.
Can't wait for it to go live....
Get this thing to the public allready. I need to make enough money to pay for the bandwidth your crawler is using every month. The results are good enough allready.
Would be nice of you to get it out before Christmas which would make me feel better about wasting all this bandwidth for over 6 months. I could afford to get my kid's something nice for Christmas this year.
I like the results. No spam in my area. Let's roll it out....
Make this thing live already!
In addition they seem to have lost almost all of our pages on a lot of sites and the page URLs seem to have been altered. They are now removing the last "/" on all directory URLs.
They seem to be tracking all clicks now too.
I'm not sure if there is also problem with 301 redirects as some of our additional domains are now showing instead of the main domain.
Overall, a complete and utter mess for us. I may have to remove all our additional domains from IIS.
That' disappointing.
These have to be the Yahoo! results.
(breaths a sigh of relief - thank you for pointing that out)
