Microsoft To Launch New Search Engine

Anyone read the news about this Thursday?

[TheGuyAboveYou]

Microsoft will launch this on Thursday.

Corp. on Thursday will start its long-awaited Internet search service, adding fresh competition to Google Inc.

The Redmond, Wash. software maker on Thursday will open to the public its service for searching the Internet after eighteen months of development. The company is trying to tap into the lucrative business now dominated by Google of combining Internet search and advertising.

[online.wsj.com...]

[submitx]

MSN Beta is down here too!

Something no one mentiond...it is time to short Google.

[outrun]

Well msn beta is up here in Australia, beta interface changed a little but I think it was like this a while back.

regards,
Mark

[soapystar]

wow! they sure love crosslinking and networks huh!

this could save some SEO's their job!

[petehall]

If you had access to the data I do you would realize what people type into se's.

I have access to Hitwise data and for the UK this shows me that:

- 4.70% of MSN UK's users arrive at MSN UK from Google UK
- 3.82% of MSN UK's users go to Google UK from MSN UK

I don't think MSN will have as much of a problem as you think, but then who am I to say.

Back on topic - I can now see the MSN UK Search results and they look fantastic!

Love the look of the SERPs and paid advertising. I think they have done incredibly well with everything...

[edited by: petehall at 12:16 pm (utc) on Nov. 11, 2004]

[Hardwood Guy]

"Your 40 year old housewife doesn't care where her search results come from"

Can't beat that funky word "Google" It's become a household word. "Google up blah, blah" I hear similar phrases from many not so savvy surfers. Tough to crack that one IMO. If MSN gets more creative and spends the money I would guess there could be a good battle.

Gotta admit msn is the easiest to type in a search box but others are just as easy.

[TinkyWinky]

major product rollout

it's not quite that in real terms - this is beta and of all my mates that are pretty savvy that I have asked, only two knew about it - cos I told them.

So yes a major event - but give it a chance before calling it a mjaor product rollout - we are only 12 hours into the beta testing mode.

[Pimpernel]

I've been trying to get in for the last few years and I get the temporarily unavailable message. Is everyone seeing this, or have they banned my IP address already! :)

[WebFusion]

Google has already figured out a way to make their money without have a soul come to their search engine. It's called Adsense

I love it when people foster a myth that first to market means a company can't be beat (tell that to netscape & AOl)

Hell, I PREFER not to be first to any niche market. Just last month I launched a products that several competitors had "beat" me to market with by about 2 years. I simply let them do all the market research for me, establish that there was, in fact, a demand for the product, and swooped in with a version that capitalized on all their weaknesses and undersold them by $10 a copy. Happens all the time. If you think any one search engine is invulnerable, you haven't been in this business long enough (right Altavista, Excite,....?)

[petehall]

I have just been on the phone to Hitwise and in the UK the market share for search engine and directories for October was dominated by:

17.1% MSN UK
16.0% Google UK

I found this a big shock to the system, and I am still pretty gob-smacked to be perfectly honest.

It seems then that at the moment Google is just far better at it's job.

[phantombookman]

this market share really does depend in what areas your business lies.

Search engine referals to all my sites tend to average 90% Google , 10% all the others combined!

[petehall]

this market share really does depend in what areas your business lies.
Search engine referals to all my sites tend to average 90% Google , 10% all the others combined!

You have completely misinterpreted my post.

MSN UK dominates the search engine and directory industry of the UK, with Google a close second. MSN UK is a busier website than Google UK.

The fact Google delivers far more traffic to websites (or your website) is completely irrelevant.

These are independent statistics from a company called Hitwise.

Out of all of the 500,000 websites that they record data for in the UK MSN UK is 3rd and Google UK is 4th.

Out of interest Hotmail UK is 1st and Ebay UK is 2nd.

[Lts95]

Here's a disturbing change in the SERPs. Yesterday on techpreview searching for "Brand-Name Widgets" returned thousands of results. Now when I search on beta, "Brand-Name Widgets" only returns brandname.com I don't think this is for legal reasons because they still showed me plenty of overture advertisements, plus all of the sites that sell this brandname product are legally able to use the brand name. Searches for "Brand-Name" and "Brand-Name Widget Store" have the same problem. Is anyone else seeing this?

[Lts95]

Sorry for the back to back posts, but after an apparent restart (search is avaialble again and is now a lot faster), this issue seems to have been fixed.

[jetboy_70]

Pete, you're leaving out some very influential factors, because Hitwise estimates traffic to a site, not searches on a site.

There are many more reasons to visit MSN than just search, whereas Google is primarily about search. Hence artificially spiked MSN figures.

In the UK, MSN users are redirected to the UK branded version by default, whereas Google users are free to use .co.uk or .com. Many do choose to use the .com version. Again, artificially spiked MSN UK figures.

Finally, MSN is the default page for Internet Explorer. Many users leave it that way. That doesn't mean they actively use MSN, but they will contribute to the Hitwise figures.

[yorkcity]

Are they figures for the MSN portal as oppossed to search engine? Could understand then why they rank above Google as anyone logging out of Hotmail will get MSN UK.

Perhaps GMail may change that with time...