Forum Moderators: mack
I can't understand the folks who do not believe MSN search are going to steamroll the search market with there gigantic wallet.
For my results that have stayed constant (like #3 then is #3 now) show a 10% decrease since Feb 1st. Only a few terms stayed exactly the same so it isn't much of a test, but to me it shows that bad quality results are unsellable, regardless of budget (as long as there is a better alternative the public knows about).
So far MSN has fallen flat because they don't deliver
no.. no..no ... MSN will do it even if it is not that good as GG ... the reason, as the original porter said.. ads everywhere ... that is what people will do, that is way GG is doing $$ with AdWord, the market is there, you need to tell the people come to you.., easy, if they see you everywhere, they think you are good, worth, better, etc .. period.
The only ones concerning about the good result are us at this point.. the average Joe will use what he remembers the most.. it is like the old times od the Anway products.. do you remember that?
The products are soo good, but no advertising at all, so nobody wants to buy them, they prefer to buy what is in the TV, newspapers, magazines .. etc.
just my 0.2c
The evolution of web search shows this concept to be false. Google won the search wars because they had a better product, period.
If MSN was doing extensive advertising for something better that would be different.
As I have avoided almost totally like the plague watching TV this millenium, perhaps I am not the best person to comment. Howevever, if I watched TV WHY would I switch based on an MSN ad to use another search engine if that search engine did better? I ignored TV ads in the last millenium as worthless hype. MSN SERPs at the moment are a joke. I know enough SEO to play MSN SERPs like a harp from hell. And have in fact actually done this. If lots of people switch to MSN, I'm gonna get rich in the SEO business. However, I doubt that mass numbers of people will ditch Google for MSN because of that gigantic wallet.
I've tried M$N search a number of times in my research, and it simply provides poor results.
I know, I know mediamatrix and the like. I personally find these results dubious.
I bet if ten people in this forum gave told us their refferal rate we would have a better figures tan all those official sites...
I see about 60%Google 20%Yahoo and 15%MSN
oh and I rank almost exactly the same in each search engine.
Anyone?
>I bet if ten people in this forum gave told us their refferal rate we would have a better figures tan all those official sites...
>I see about 60%Google 20%Yahoo and 15%MSN
>oh and I rank almost exactly the same in each search engine.
>Anyone?
Having seen numerous site logs, your experience is normal. MSN is WAY behind Google, and still behind Yahoo. MSN is still third best.
Having seen numerous site logs, your experience is normal. MSN is WAY behind Google, and still behind Yahoo. MSN is still third best.
I have to agree there. Despite even better rankings across the board in MSN than in Google, G still delivers nearly 70% of my inquiries. MSN is a very distant third.
Google has inertia on its side. MSN and Yahoo were so poor for so long that people have grown to depend on Google. I'm not saying that will always be the case as I have faith that Bill Gates won't stop until he has won the search war ... or is at least considered a major contender.
The public can take a very long time to react to market changes provided they are still happy with what Google delivers. People are naturally resistant to change if they are comfortable. Until they become unhappy, they will stick with Google.
MSN and Yahoo are going to have to work very, very hard to win back each user ... one at a time.
I suspect (as mentioned above) that until MSN search is incorporrated into a browser (which people really like) MSN won't make any serious gains. It could take a couple of years to show any serious impact.
It’s an established principle in the marketing world that the best product not always (even not usually) wins. In most situations, greater marketing power decides the battle against product quality, because it expands your reach to the consumer. More avertising, distribution channels, etc., become greater “mind” share (positioning), and this, in turn, becomes greater “market” share (that gives you more mind share, and so on).
But nowadays the search engine market it’s not in its infancy. It’s not a new market, where there are a few beginners and advanced consumers, and one or two products that are pioneering the market. It’s a rather developed market with established brands and millions of experienced consumers. So Google it is not Netscape.
A new competitor with deep pockets cannot easily invades and gains share in this market, because there’s not a huge volume of new consumers entering the market. The new competitor has to persuade the experienced consumers to switch to a new product. Has to give him or she a good reason to take that step: convenience, cost, better satisfaction, etc.
Because of the strong advertising campaign, an important number of users will try the new MSN. If MSN satisfies them, some will adopt it. If not, they won’t. If, as it seems, MSN is a bad engine, the advertising campaign is a wrong step. IMO, if MS wants to dominate the market, it will need to offer something more.
If you get a restaurant coupon and get served crappy food, you don't go back
That is debatable, but we'll leave that for foo! Anyway, why do ya figure nearly every single Internet user uses IE when it is the inferior product? Do you thionk MSN may be able to gain a decent piece of market share using aggressive tactics?
MSN traffic is way up in the past month with the same positions - some sites 40%. I am interested in others (who track at least a couple dozen sites) stats. I have yet to hear anyone besides steveb say the traffic is not growing.
I have worked for multiple companies and have seen it over and over. TV advertising drives the US economy. No matter how far behind the curve you are, if you can brand yourself on the TV, you can make it up.
Editg: Well... MSN found a new site of mine and started ranking it after two weeks. I'm still waiting for Google to do anything with it at all apart from sending the googlebot visiting. That's one area where MSN is beating Google hands down.
Hear, hear. Google used to be so good at doing that... MSN picked up a new site that's taken me ages to create and it's at number #1 for the main keyword after a few weeks of being live....
I consider IE superior to all other browsers except in the area of security. And, very few computer users really understand security issues.
Two simple answers. Most people think IE *is* the best browser, the devotion of the minority not to the contrary.
But even more than that, the vast majority of users have never used another browser, so how the heck would they know what is good or bad?
In this case, people use the market leader, Google, and have their opinions about it. Yahoo and MSN need to build a better product to "win". Marketing doesn't trump user experience. We'd be living in a Mac world if that were the case.
Marketing doesn't trump user experience. We'd be living in a Mac world if that were the case.
The most recent search engine studies have shown the gap closing between Y/msn and G. What leads you to believe that users are not satisfied with Microsoft, discounting your personal experience?
I would love to hear from someone who does seo, with clients (meaningful data), and has data available that does not support my claim that traffic is rising already in msn. Speaking with most the folks here that track this stuff they are all saying the same. We are tracking 1000's of terms over hundreds of sites and the traffic is...simply...growing. It is not exploding, but rising nonetheless. MSN probably will not "dethrone google" but grow, they surely will.
MSN will be at least a reasonable force in the SEO market for years to come. Longhorn will not hurt this either :)
Cite please. No such thing has been posted here, and it would be absurd anyway as MSN is all of five weeks old.
"What leads you to believe that users are not satisfied with Microsoft, discounting your personal experience?"
A 10% drop in the few terms I have that have stayed at exactly the same spot in MSN for five weeks. It isn't a meaningful amount of data, and all things are seasonal in some minor way, so I don't draw conclusions from it, but there sure haven't been any posts here about an increase in MSN traffic for pages ranked the same since the ad blitz began.
Steve claims that msn traffic has dropped since the huge advertising blitz, the increased exposure on msn.com and the update to messenger which includes the toolbar by default. I think he is saying the traffic has dropped due to bad SERPS over the past 5 weeks.
I am saying the traffic has grown purely due to the huge marketing push.
Which seems more likely, msn spending $50M on ads and losing market share INSTANTLY or msn search traffic spiking from a big ad campaign?
:)
Also I am in the IT sector and have found that more and more people, companies, edu's, cities, etc. are switching to MSN or Yahoo. Google isn't worried for nothing!
but there sure haven't been any posts here about an increase in MSN traffic for pages ranked the same since the ad blitz began.
Actually, I posted that my traffic increased 200% since the ad blitz began in the second message of this thread. What I did leave out was that the pages stayed ranked the same (give or take 1 or 2 spots movement up/down occasionally).
No, actually I just posted about a few terms, which I wouldn't draw conclusions about, and I said five weeks isn't anything to talk about in any case.
Apparently there was nothing to cite in the other case so perhaps we can let that wives tale rest until there is actually some meaningful data in a few months.
A strong TV campaign obviously increases traffic... while the ads are on TV. The question is if the users keep coming after the campaign.
Of course it does. My guess is that they will keep SOME of these users. As for right now, it is obvious they have generated some short term boost for ANYONE with any stats to look at and/or half a brain.
MSN search is coming
Not to my sites it's not
I have a site that is #3 on Google and #1 on MSN for a 2 word search returning over 10 million results, MSN provides less than 1% of traffic, often none at all.
A single wiki link provides more referals to an internal page than MSN does to the whole 2,000 page site!
if your bottled water tasted like p%^s water how many would buy a second time? I think this is steveb's point.
There is a whole laundry list of supposed energy drinks that do taste like p*$s. The only reason they sell is due to marketing.
