Forum Moderators: mack
[specials.msn.com...]
[edited by: Imaster at 9:39 am (utc) on Feb. 1, 2005]
type the following question into both Search Engines:
what is the population of Fredericton
MSN gives an answer.
Google gives links to irrelevant pages.
For the "Aunt Tilly-s" of the world, this is a BIG advantage for MSN.
Their SERPS are less than stellar, given, but natural language questioning is something AskJeeves tackled ages ago, maybe a bit ahead of the technology to do it properly, and it gave them a foothold in the Search Engine world they have yet to relinquish.
Things like natural language questions with actual responses.... That's the kind of thing MSN can do to set themselves apart... An potentially set themselves ahead.
Also, they're tying results from Encarta into the queries. Another thing that Google is missing out on.
Natural language queries with answers... Ability to query a well known Encyclopedia (and don't bother mentioning Wikipedia... The "Aunt Tilly-s" out there don't even know it exists.)
"Aunt Tilly" - That's MSN's target market. That's a market they know and have a proven ability to dominate.
Don't underestimate it.
*Exchange "Fredericton" with the city name of your choice.
MSN Encarta Free Pass
Open the door to a world of knowledge! MSN Search is now offering two hours of free access to the MSN Encarta encyclopedia whenever you click an Encarta link from MSN Search.When your two-hour free pass expires, you can return to MSN Search, run another search or click an Encarta link. Your two-hour free pass is instantly renewable whenever you click an Encarta link from MSN Search.
Smiles all over the place today at the Googleplex. I wish my competitors would be as nice to me as Google's are.
You say that but I had to resort to using MSN to find a very niche site (car club in the UK) that I knew existed.
I did struggle with Google for at least 5-10 mins but had to give up.
I went straight to MSN.co.uk and hey presto, they rank the site no1 where it deserves to be.
As much as I love Google if this becomes a more frequent event I can't see me returning there as often as I do currently.
Thank you Bill Gates :)
If they do start to steal some of Google's traffic and the results are stable I'm booking two holidays this year!
TJ
Forgetting Webmastering for a moment who here has now switched to having MSN search as their homepage (where it was formally G. or another engine)?
I have just done that this morning!
I want to use the search engine as much as possible over the next few weeks and see how often I have to return to G.
They seem to be able index & rank the sites more appropriately at this time.
I am in AU - and they are doing a good job on local.
another annoying thing is when i type "mysite" in. my website is position 8 (was 20 odd in full BETA) and sites which link to me are listed 1-7.
Surely this is a glitch or does it show less importance on the link content?
Hughie
[search.msn.com...]
I believe the results are slightly different from msn for world.
Strong results coming through stats across all sectors for sights on both msn & ninemsn
Monitoring around 40 sites and all seeing good benefits from both ninemsn & msn.
Bracing myself for all the mainstream magazines to start doing search engine shoot-offs between MSN, Google & Yahoo (and various others).
That will indeed be interesting but in my area Google will walk it - and easily!
That's why we're proud of our new MSN Search service, a simple and powerful tool that helps you find the answers you want from sources as diverse as Web pages, images, news headlines, music downloads, and even files on your PC.
Bill drawed the big picture. But I am scared by his word "even files on your PC".
But listing a full page of Google links must count as a blunder in the software giant's campaign for web-domination.
The result begged the question: "Why bother with MSN in the first place?"
hmm.. nice one vitaplease.
So the big question for Mr. Gates, will people continue to use his service after they try it out this week.
When I search on MSN.com I get taken to [beta.search.msn.com...]
Is it being backed out due a problem or something. At least I'm not directed to msn.co.uk anymore.
Object Moved
This document may be found here
The "here" is a link, except it isn't cos you don't go anywhere.
My msn traffic has dropped to close to zero since beta went live, even with top rankings in what I thought would be total traffic generators, oh well.... some users seem to agree with steveb's assessment.
Actually, I did start to get what I would expect early today, but they it just seems to have trailed off.
Is Midnight Feb 1, midnight as in when it ticks over from 31st January to Geb 1st, or midnight when it ticks from from 1st Feb to 2nd Feb.
Which day does midnight belong to.
technically it goes
23.59:59
00.00:00
00.00:01
so midnight is at the beginning of a day, not at the end.....hence my pet peeve also by those publications, info leaflets, etc that insist the time 24:00 exists when it quite clearly doesn't and can't.
Forgetting Webmastering for a moment who here has now switched to having MSN search as their homepage (where it was formally G. or another engine)?
I have.
My site ranks well. I know my competitors and MSN ranks them pretty closely to the way I would have done it myself. Google seems to like the "auction", "shopping" and "comparison" sites. Their results in my niche are complete trash. It's refreshing to see something even close to reasonable results. I'm tired of the "Google Game".
