New MSN Search Goes LIVE in Beta!

[Nacho]

Its finally here! Feeeuuuuuu! This confirms last night's thread (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=2665) with the rumors then.

Today Chris Sherman made a great review titled Microsoft Unveils its New Search Engine - At Last (http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3434261):

The new engine, available at beta.search.msn.com (http://beta.search.msn.com) is an algorithmic search engine built from scratch by Microsoft engineers. "This is our new engine that we've built from the ground up," said Justin Osmer, product manager for MSN Search. Released in beta form, it's expected to replace Yahoo search results still in place at MSN sometime later this year or early next year.

So, what do you think of the new MSN Search (beta)?

[Nacho]

As most will rush to view their website analytics software for new traffic from MSN, please keep in mind that http://www.msn.com which hast most of it is still using http://search.msn.com and not the new beta.

So if your new rankings are great, GOOD. Do what you can to keep the up there.

If your rankings are low, don't panic. Start doing your research and testing. I have a feeling you might have enough time to get them back up without really hurting your stats and results.

[copsewood]

So, what do you think of the new MSN Search (beta)?

Not much. They'll have to make it less demanding on websites if many admins are not going to block it. I welcome competition against google but not from a company with a long criminal history of programming hooks into their systems to disable competitors' software. :mad:

[orion]

From this end, the beta version is giving

This site is temporarily unavailable, please check back soon.

Orion

[rustybrick]

Me too Orion.

[JohnGalt]

It's frustrating, and I would have thought ms would have made it much more bullet proof. This is not getting off to a good start. I was checking some of my rankings on the pre-release versions of the new msn search, and I was starting to get the (good) feeling that they had possibly found a way to filter out obvious cloaking attempts. One of my main competitors uses cloaking and by doing so has pushed me down below him in google, whereas I used to be way ahead of him. In my ideal world, msn search will be so good that it will eliminate those who attempt to show one thing to bots and another to "real" visitors. Is this too much to hope for?

[truba]

You gotta be kidding. The site has been down for 2 hours for me this morning.

[hiero]

Isn't it just like Microsoft to launch something new that's not ready for Prime Time! (even though it's still in beta why all the fan faire if it's not ready). Pretty embarrassing to get excited about something new Microsoft only to be disappointed to find that it's not currently working.

[andrewm57]

Plz see article at:
http://www.marketingshift.com/2004/11/microsoft-crawling-google-results-for.cfm
for some serious questions about the 'bots & engine, and my 'concur' comments re recent 404 hits to technically non-existent files.

[inlogicalbearer]

One 25 try this morning I got only one result working.
After the blue screen of the Microsoft OS the orange sentense of MSN Search ;-)

[Nacho]

You gotta be kidding. The site has been down for 2 hours for me this morning.
They probably saw the Business 2.0 article (http://www.business2.com/b2/web/articles/0,17863,696229,00.html) the other day that read:

" . . .many of the standard plot devices of tech startup triumph: the clever spotting of an overlooked opportunity, the crashing server -- the server always crashes -- the plucky victory in the end."
Common' Microsoft you did not build this engine in a garage! Let's not play "pretend" here.

[rustybrick]

MSN responded at their blog http://blogs.msdn.com/msnsearch/archive/2004/11/11/255802.aspx

[orion]

I'm happy to see is working fine for integrated optimization (http://beta.search.msn.com/results.aspx?FORM=SBLOG&q=integrated%20optimization)

The explanation

"In the process of making our new MSN Search beta broadly available we experienced some technical difficulties that caused the beta service to function improperly or be unavailable for some users for periods of time."

Doesn't say much. Either this was an internal problem, external or created by who knows. Hard to tell, but we cannot speculate either. I'm just happy to see Microsoft in the search arena.


Orion

[AussieWebmaster]

Okay do a search for this term: more evil than satan

http://beta.search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=more+evil+than+satan&FORM=QBRE


Guess paybacks are a bitch.

http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/article.php/2167621

[rustybrick]

Good find there.

[orion]

How about this one

better than God (http://beta.search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=better+than+god&FORM=QBRE)


Orion

[Nacho]

I do see that fresher pages rank higher on the serps. Anyone noticing the same?

[vicaya]

Click "+Search Builder" and then "Result Ranking", you'll see 3 sliders for proximity, popularity and freshness, which introduce these {..} operators in the query. And they do affect results significantly.

Cool.

[AussieWebmaster]

I do see that fresher pages rank higher on the serps. Anyone noticing the same?
Good catch... obviously the big impact is lower off page and higher on page... I wonder what the turn around time is for refreshing the SERPs.... could be an interesting battle for position prior to going live on the MSN portal.

[orion]

Interesting, isn’t it? Just the opposite of conspiracy theories and other search engines.

business rumors (http://beta.search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=business+rumors&FORM=QBRE)
term vector (http://beta.search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=term+vector&FORM=QBRE)
keywords co-occurrence (http://beta.search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=keywords+co-occurrence&FORM=QBRE)
on topic analysis (http://beta.search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=on+topic+analysis&FORM=QBRE)
javascript optimization (http://beta.search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=javascript+optimization&FORM=QBRE)
color optimization (http://beta.search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=color+optimization&FORM=QBRE)
website validations (http://beta.search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=website+validations&FORM=QBRE)
security optimization (http://beta.search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=security+optimization&FORM=QBRE)


Will they drop my other test pages that are not new? Will see if MSN pass these tests.


Orion

[orion]

My Lord! Look what I got for

mexican food (http://beta.search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=mexican+food&FORM=QBRE)
tortillas tamales (http://beta.search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=tortillas+tamales&FORM=QBRE)

Now, where did I hear about these terms?

Congratulations, Nacho.


Orion

[Nacho]

Shhhhhhhh........ I forgot to put on my shark repellent today :p

[zareef]

Here MSN beta is working only for some selective words like free.
I think they are yet to complete thier archieve.

[Chris_D]

Hey guys - just chill.

Redmond has chosen to make search an issue - I've been a critic a while - all they have done is issue press releases.

But - credit where credit is due - there is now a BBQ at MSN - not just 'sizzle'...

MSN's '3rd' major search engine is live - you guys need to see past a pimple on its butt!

B - E - T- A Whats that mean?

"Mostly working, but still under test; usu. used with `in': `in beta'. In
the Real World, systems (hardware or software) software often go
through two stages of release testing: Alpha (in-house) and Beta
(out-house?). Beta releases are generally made to a group of lucky
(or unlucky) trusted customers.

Competition is good. Good for the industry - good for advertisers - good for everyone.

[orion]

Will they drop my other test pages that are not new? Will see if MSN pass these tests.

Stability Test: Yesterday #1, Today #20 for business rumors (an old page), all others the same.


Shhhhhhhh........ I forgot to put on my shark repellent today

Don’t worry. Content is King.


Orion

[Nacho]

Content is King.
Words of wisdom. It seems that MSN Search (beta) is exactly what it loves the most, because the pages you pointed out (along with other examples I have tested) demonstrate that.

Knowing my web site inside and out. I would have NOT placed those to pages as #1 and #2 on the "mexican food" query. On the "tamales tortillas" query, it's right on target.

[orion]

Well put and confirmed with mexican recipes (http://beta.search.msn.co.uk/results.aspx?q=mexican+recipes&FORM=QBRE). #8 out of 7,085,823.


Orion

[Nacho]

That is a pretty fair SERP for that query. We still have room for improvement on that section.

[Nacho]

Over at WebmasterWorld (http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum97/219-7-15.htm), GoogleGuy made a great post about MSN Search (beta)'s functionalities and things to watch out for, including serious reverse-engineering on MSN's algorithm. In this post, he mentions:

Most search engine optimizers will be fascinated by the ability to play with sliders and try to reverse-engineer how Microsoft is ranking
Totally agreed. This is a great treat for our savvy SEO/SEM group.

I wouldn't be surprised if the number of users that eventually use this feature will be counted in the low hundreds, rather than the hundreds of millions of REAL users when it hits search.msn.com. So, did MSN develop this tool for us or for the general population? Anyway, thank you MSN for this very kind treat for us to get a better picture of your algorithms as it will help us do our work more efficiently with our clients.

Other things to watch for, as he pointed out from the new MSN Search Blog (http://www.webmasterworld.com/red.cgi?f=97&d=219&url=http://blogs.msdn.com/msnsearch) are these comments they made about how they're doing (http://blogs.msdn.com/msnsearch/archive/2004/11/12/256832.aspx) focusing on these main areas:

UI suggestions & ideas
Developer API requests
News Integration
Availability
Relevance

I continue to find it all very exciting, as GoogleGuy suggests, this is like a once in a long time comet that very few get to appreciate when it passes by.

There are still some un-answered questions about how MSN build their index, as they have been discussed in this thread: Microsoft Scraping Google and Yahoo! SERPS? (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=2705). Since MSN Search Blog reports that they are carefully reading our threads at SEW, perhaps MSNDude can swing by and clear this up a bit more.

[orion]

Great finding, Nacho.

Originally Posted by GoogleGuy
Most search engine optimizers will be fascinated by the ability to play with sliders and try to reverse-engineer how Microsoft is ranking

(Emphasis added)

This from the G boy sounds to me more than an invitation.

With this statement, looking around and reading between lines across blogs and certain sites, it appears to me there is a bit of an orchestrated interest from some bloggers, G boyscouts, and interest groups in not letting MSN beta fly. The usual suspects, at large.


Orion

[Nacho]

With this statement, looking around and reading between lines across blogs and certain sites, it appears to me there is a bit of an orchestrated interest from some bloggers, G boyscouts, and interest groups in not letting MSN beta fly. The usual suspects, at large.
Reminds me of being a "freshman" then growing up to be a "senior" and looking down at the "freshmen" back in school. I believe, we called this "Freshman Initiation".

We all learn to grow up I guess.

[Lance Housley]

I wouldn't be surprised if the number of users that eventually use this feature will be counted in the low hundreds, rather than the hundreds of millions of REAL users when it hits search.msn.com.
Like so many people here, I thought these sliders were really great. Since then, I've been racking my brains to work out when I might use them - or even what they mean.

Static vs Recently updated makes a sort of sense, if one could be sure that the search engine could reliably recognise the difference between updating content and merely tweaking layout or updating a link. On the other hand, most reference information - like encyclopedia and dictionary entries - are failrly static, and I do wonder how many people would make the mental leap away from our "new equals better" culture to thinking "I need solid facts that can stand the test of time, so I need static entries".

Aproximate match vs Exact match. An interesting proposition. Are we talking fuzzy logic or fuzzy concepts here, or maybe just "Ah ain't ver' good at expressin' mahsel' an' ah needs sum help fer gittin' what ah needs". Maybe it's just that the product is still in development, but I certainly have not been able to convince myself that I can see what the difference in results really is.

Very popular vs Less popular. "Less popular" - now that's different from unpopular, is it? Geek? Rabid individualist? And what about "More popular"? A polite way of saying "I follow the herd"?

Now, I could see the point of selecting or de-selecting "Commercial" or "Academic" or "government report" &c. One of the disadvantages of the old MSN search has been its tendency to serve up shopping pages regardless of what one wants. I see that a review of the beta has criticised it for serving up a "Buy my photos" page instead of a history of photography.

One of the factors that may convince me to use Google for a particular search is that it does tend to promote official reports and research literature. One way to focus on hobbyist and personal sites (or on pop music, for that matter) has been to use MSN Search, but I hesitate to call that kind of material "more popular" since statistics show that the most popular SE is Google.

Now, I note that there are some metasearch engines that allow the searcher to select which group of niche SEs to query. Profusion, for example, offers Arts and Humanities, Business, Career, Developer Toolbox, Discussions, Downloads, Education, Entertainment, Finance, Government, Health, International, Legal... and so on. Vertical search engines have always had a valuable but largely unrecognised role that the general search engines like Google have been less able to fulfill.

So where does that take us? Are the sliders little more than a gimmick?
For my part, I can see a great use for that kind of feature, but perhaps using criteria other than the ones chosen for this beta, and certainly with clearer labels, to allow the general search engines to mimic the focus of the specialist SEs.

[Artyom]

The main difference I can see at SERPs at Google, MSN and MSNbeta is a total web results quantity which they return fo the same keyword I'm using.

flash animated website designs (pretty target keyword)

MSN returns - 27878
MSNbeta returns - 785,165
Google returns - 978,000

general keyword - animated website

MSN returns - 742758
MSNbeta returns -13,753,427
Google returns - 8,270,000

My thoughts about these SERPS comperation

1. MSNbeta has much bigger index then MSN has

2. My site is number one for both keywords at MSNbeta and as I can see it's because these keywords are at my site title and MSNbeta considers it as a key factor. But as long as I can't see the same sites which Google returns me (with these keywords within titles) at MSNbeta SERPs I believe MSNbeta index is smaller then GG index.

3. It considers keyword existence at title as a heavier factor then current MSN version

3. Perhaps I've lost at my assumptions, but I think MSNbeta has a simpler ranking algoritm then GG has and potentially when it'll go from beta to replace current MSN it'll be a bit easier to get higher ranking at MSN then at current MSN and difinitely easier then with Google.