Forum Moderators: mack
...at one point saying MSFT's goal was to be the best in search. He jokingly advised the crowd to buy Google stock and coyly refused comment as to whether he thought Google's advantage lay mostly in marketing.
Outdevelop, Outmarket, Outpromote... stay tuned for Search Engine Survivor!
Coming this fall.
"They have a way of formatting things that has had some appeal," Gates said. "It will be matched."
Whether it will be matched or not, he sure DO know what he's talking about.
Coming this fall.
Will believe that when i see it.
MQ
Gates blamed search's shortcomings on its keyword-based approach, and argued that natural language and contextual semantic approaches will be the next leap forward.
is the logical direction for them to be going. And they've got some people on board widely published in that area, including language differences. It's a natural for them because other of their intended search applications won't be in a hyperlinked environment.
Coming this fall.
Why can't it be rolling by Fall, in time for Holiday shopping? It doesn't necessarily have to roll out full-grown. They've already said it won't be, but will be on a limited basis at first when it's in Beta. Why not start with their properties like MSDN or MSN Shopping?
"They have a way of formatting things that has had some appeal," Gates said. "It will be matched."
I'm figuring Bill is talking about G's design of their SERP's? Did anyone expects M$ search to not look exactly like their competition? It's also interesting that Bill is comfortable pointing that out. Maybe I misunderstood?
If they are applying non-kw approaches, won't it be a whole new ballgame involving linguistic hacks? Maybe the average 6th grade level reader will like the SERPs produced, but there's likely to be a huge disappointment for those users accustomed to a higher level of language sophistication. Didn't AskJeeves prove that?
I see the opportunity for spammy sites much higher with linguistic approaches. M$ is probably counting on using success metrics that strictly define spam as noted, and therefore even crappy SERPs will be rated as a spam-free success. Kinda like their security program?
Also, score one for inshoring in the US? I haven't met too many non-natives who can write to match the culture well enough to convince a linguistic engine. It's hard enought to write one text for New Yorkers and Californians.
Sid
If they are applying non-kw approaches, won't it be a whole new ballgame involving linguistic hacks?
Yep. And index spam (at least, the kind that gets into the MS SERPS) will look more and more like email spam.
They can claim to have the best way of ranking, but if no one ever gets to the natural listings who will really care?
SEO will be good for picking up the stuff no one else wants
That will then be 3 out of 4 with big G the only player with some chance of SEO being worth while and being seen for competitive terms .
As PPC continues to grow less and less terms will be available for natural results
steve
Is there a forum for MS Search yet? Don't we need one for "advance research"?
One day someone will read the forum charter [webmasterworld.com]. (sigh).
You might tweak sites and pages to hit the natural #1 spot but that spot will be buried below the paid listings so far that the traffic from natural searches will be less then the traffic you are now getting from Infoseek.
Natural listings are an ever-decreasing slice of the pie and I can't see that slowing down. That's not new.
SEO and SEM will become the next internet dinosours if google fails to adequately monetise it's natural listings product.
"Buy Google stock" jokes Gates. He'd love it if you did. What he actually means is "Buy Google stock and then insist on getting a decent commercial return from your investment".
Bill Gates doesn't like to share his pie.
Google are gambling that it can monetise natural listings by biasing them towards informational resources and getting money from the publishers through AdSense, combined with revenue from e-mails through gmail.
Bill Gates is gambling that they will fail. And he seems pretty confident to me.
TJ
They already do tons of marketing. They already have huge brand awareness.
Does not seem like much will change.
Comfort is what keeps people staying in one place. Incentive invites switch. 'Come check out our better local search' sounds funny....
As long as Google and Yahoo! technologies contine to develop and improve with the times, MSN is not going to jump in and 'takeover'. No one is sitting back and waiting to be crushed IMO.
Many users don't like 'paid placement' results and do not click on them. Many users can't decipher between what is paid and what is natural, but people as a whole are becoming more internet savy with every passing day.
Gates blamed search's shortcomings on its keyword-based approach, and argued that natural language and contextual semantic approaches will be the next leap forward.
Greetings,
Herenvardo
Its good to see competitors keep the big G on their toes.
As for MSN's "natural language search", didn't Ask Jeeves try that already? My only use for AJ is to see if my site rates anywhere. As I recall, you type in a question like "Who is the King of Disneyland" .. AJ then took the keywords King and Disneyland and did something like a Yahoo search for those two words .. and the affeminate Butler dished up the results.
Hopefully, MS Search will dish up something better.
A separate issue, hopefully on topic. MS Crawler is the top spider on my site too. Is there some reason the findings don't get into their _existing_ search results? Best - LH
Regards...jmcc
As lond as I use Google to search MSDN, they are nobody.
