IMO – New MSN Search is NOW LIVE!

[Nacho]

Danny Sullivan blogged on 1/11/2005 about “MSN Search Beta To Be More Exposed To The Public”, which was referring to news stated by Oshoma Momoh, General Manager, MSN Search Program Management, in a blog titled “Beta Ramp-Up” on 1/8/2005 that confirms it with the following quote:

“From time to time we also route some of the customers from our live search service at search.msn.com through the Beta web site in order to do scalability testing. Next week we intend to begin turning up the dial and direct more of our users to the Beta. You’ll continue to see us doing this on occasion for the foreseeable future. As before, the service remains in beta status and we will officially launch it when it’s ready.”

The thing I ask is, what do they really mean by “officially launch it”?

Are you waiting for someone (maybe Bill Gates) to cut a ribbon somewhere some day (perhaps as reported in this thread on Feb 1st) and let users rush to the new search engine? Well, I DON’T THINK SO. To me, “officially” launching it just means the press will get word out as an . . . OK, you’re good to go. Tell your readers about it now . . . I think that the real official launch past right through our noses on January 8th when Oshoma told the world first hand that its for real now. How many really paid attention?

I DID!

Here is how, and it wasn’t really because of the blog from the MSN Search team either. It was just from looking at my log files (thanks to my very reliable Urchin Software) and spotted something. Quick history, I launched a brand new website on November 10, 2004. Sorry guys/gals can’t give out the domain name (I love you folks, but my shark suit was sent to the dry cleaners). . . . to the point . . . By tracking my search engine traffic I noticed a strong spike from search.msn.com and thought it was odd because I knew my site was poorly indexed, and confirmed to this date when I do a site:www.domain.com instruction I only get ONE page indexed (my homepage). However, when I do the exact same function on the beta.search.msn.com I get 16,014 documents returned. So, if there is only ONE document on search.msn.com, then why would I get this traffic and for keywords not available on my homepage but much deeper in the site:

Simple, it’s just a confirmation of the statement from MSN above . . . right? True. However, I believe my traffic from search.msn.com will not back down and rather continue to increase as I’ve seen with the other search engines. Therefore, if someone does cut a ribbon, to tell you the truth . . . I don’t really care. I care about my MSN traffic growing which started moving since 1/10/2005 and I thank the MSN Search team for that!!! Great work guys!

The thing that comes to my mind about all of this, is that will the new MSN Search be better than the other search engines? I don’t know, but I’m sure it has a good shot at it. Right now, I know Google continues to be the best and the following graph proves it. Google crawled my site since day one on 11/10/2004 and started sending me real qualified traffic a little over a week after that. Now with over 110,000 pages indexed, I can’t complain at all. Oh yeah, before I forget to say, that “sandbox effect” . . . is that for real? Cuz, it probably slipped by on the first week.

The day ANY other search engine can do what Google has shown me in the last 2 months, I might change my mind about who the best really is. For now, all I know is that . . .

IMO, the New MSN Search is NOW LIVE!

[qwerty]

As far as I can tell, it's not live for me. I'm not getting the same results on searches at search.msn.com as I am at beta.search.msn.com, and I have to wonder why the search page would still have a link to the beta if the beta had gone alpha.

I'm also not seeing a jump (either up or down) in referrals from MSN in any of the sites I watch.

[Nacho]

Originally Posted by qwerty

As far as I can tell, it's not live for me. I'm not getting the same results on searches at search.msn.com as I am at beta.search.msn.com, and I have to wonder why the search page would still have a link to the beta if the beta had gone alpha.

I'm also not seeing a jump (either up or down) in referrals from MSN in any of the sites I watch.

During the ramp up process, the new MSN Search may or might not be live for you as a user. But for someone out there it is, so you're websites are exposed to those users. Being exposed means the new search engine is LIVE regardless of the volume capacity it's taking. It could just be very possible and a coincidence that the users exposed to it are not the right target market for your keywords and thus you're getting either very minimal volume that is significant enough to notice or no volume at all. As long as it is exposed to live users then it's LIVE for all referring websites that successfully got their pages in the index. If you are one of these, then the only thing you're going to see is your traffic from search.msn.com move in the direction of how you are positioned in the rankings. Better positioning, more traffic, and worse positioning compared to the results provided by the Yahoo! technology the less traffic.

The point is, the way the new MSN search engine was launched was a very carefully studied strategy that is giving them the wiggle room for fixing last minute bugs, but whether it's live at 23% or live at 100% . . . IT'S LIVE!

In my case for this website that was launched in 11/10/2004, it was better positioned on MSN Search (Beta) than on Yahoo!'s powered MSN Search. Therefore my traffic is increasing every more an more, making it live for me since 1/10/2005.

[qwerty]

Thanks for the clarification. I thought when you said it was live, you meant that it had completely replaced the old index of Yahoo results.

[Nacho]

For some users it has.

[toprank]

I'm definitley seeing the new MSN search. Some of it is good, some not so good.

[searchengineblog.com]

Keep in mind there's been no official word. Results may be temporary.

[Nacho]

Originally Posted by searchengineblog.com

Keep in mind there's been no official word. Results may be temporary.

Oh, but it has been "Official" as noted in original post from MSN Search Team's Blog. Are you talking about the "official" date when someone might cut a ribbon (if that ever does happen) or that News Media releases word to the open public, primarily the users?

Perhaps this graph will help you visualize how I see their strategy of making LIVE the New MSN Search in transition.

[searchengineblog.com]

Much as I'd like to comment, I couldn't possibly

What I can say is there doesn't appear to be any official word. What you make of that is up to you.

[Nacho]

Peter, I understand you can't say anything. This is all my perception. Call me crazy if you like, but I share my thoughts and opinions to my friends and colleagues of SEW Forums because who knows, I may be right.

<added>From all the rumors and statements going around, I just don't believe they will be going LIVE with a flip of a switch on a single day.</added>

[searchengineblog.com]

Peter, I understand you can't say anything. This is all my perception. Call me crazy if you like, but I share my thoughts and opinions to my friends and colleagues of SEW Forums because who knows, I may be right.

I know, mate I don't think you're crazy at all. Wish I could be of more help at this point. I really do.

[Dave Hawley]

It aint live here is Oz yet. I guess it has always been live for some though.

[Marcia]

By the time Yahoo officially rolled out their new search, they had already been delivering it to a good number of people for a while. It was IP based; I was getting Yahoo search for a while before the official launch. That could well be what MSN is doing, and would explain why some are seeing the new and some aren't. It was the same thing prior to the full Yahoo release.

[qwerty]

Originally Posted by Nacho

...I just don't believe they will be going LIVE with a flip of a switch on a single day.

There has to be some point at which the home page of the search no longer links to the beta version, because at that point there won't be a beta anymore... unless they "release" what's currently referred to as the beta only when they're ready to stick the next version into beta

So while there may not be a big announcement (although I expect there will be), I'd say that there will be a point where we can say that the currently beta version will become the current release.

[rustybrick]

MSN has been far more open about what they plan to roll out then Google or Yahoo. MSN told us that we should begin seeing more of a roll out of the beta results in the main msn search. Would Google or Yahoo ever (in the past, in the future) do that? I doubt it.

I think that if MSN Search switched completely over, they would have told us. My two cents.

[Lex]

Originally Posted by Nacho

IMO, the New MSN Search is NOW LIVE!

Originally Posted by Nacho

but whether it's live at 23% or live at 100% . . . IT'S LIVE!

Originally Posted by Nacho

[I see their strategy of making LIVE the New MSN Search

Nacho, I think you're channeling Dr. Frankenstien.

In terms of being a user, it's been playing peek-a-boo with me.

As for referrals, I'm seeing bumps and spikes on certain client sites.

[Nacho]

Originally Posted by Lex

Nacho, I think you're channeling Dr. Frankenstien.

Hello, my name is Nacho Hernandez and I'm a searchengineholic.

Just kidding! I love this business!

[DrBob12]

Hey guys, great thread here, I hope you can help me. I just discovered that that the MSN Beta Search took over the regular MSN search which I had a #1 ranking on and now with the Beta as the main search I have dropped to #14. What is the criteria for getting top ranking in the new Search engine. Thanks in advance for your help.

For Keywords that is!!

Dr. Bob!

[Arizona Web]

Originally Posted by DrBob12

Hey guys, great thread here, I hope you can help me. I just discovered that that the MSN Beta Search took over the regular MSN search which I had a #1 ranking on and now with the Beta as the main search I have dropped to #14. What is the criteria for getting top ranking in the new Search engine. Thanks in advance for your help.

For Keywords that is!!

Dr. Bob!

The same methods I have been using for Gogle and Yahoo kick butt in the new MSN. Both on-page and off-page optimization are important. Anchor text links, good page and site structure, links from authority sites, etc. should get you ranked well in the new MSN.

I gotta say I am loving it so far, and I really like the new clean look a lot more too.

[DrBob12]

Thanks for the info, I am pretty new at this SEO stuff, but I am getting better with each passing day. I'll just work on my site structure and pretend like it's Google, which I am not doing too good at right now, but I am okay for key words on Yahoo. Thanks for the help.

Dr. Bob!