Online search portal features a user interface designed to fetch more accurate Web search results.
Microsoft opened another chapter in the Web search wars, taking its Live Search platform out of the testing phase in 47 markets worldwide, including the United States.
Microsoft said its new online search portal will feature an improved user interface designed to fetch more accurate Web search results than the beta version had provided. The Live.com site is meant to be used as a personal search home page, where Web searches, news search, image searches and local searches can be conducted, and additional links to shopping sites and other favorite Web sites can be stored.
The software giant also said that the local version of the search tool, Windows Live Search is the renamed and revamped replacement for MSN Search. Windows Live Search is powering the search on MSN.com, as well as on Windows Live.com – another “Live” property that Microsoft made available in final form, starting on September 12.
Live Search had previously been available in test form and is the successor to MSN Search, Microsoft’s current search engine. It ranks a distant third in U.S. popularity after Yahoo and Google, according to the most recent data from Nielsen/Net Ratings.
Microsoft officials also announced that Windows Live Local Search, which provides bird’s-eye imagery and mobile search, will be moving from beta to final release status in the U.S. and the U.K.
Live.com is a customizable home page that users can use for search, as well as to track news, RSS feeds and blogs, images and video.
A New Era
The release also is part of the Redmond software company’s push to offer a number of free, web-based services under its new "Live" brand name. The approach has been aimed at helping the company establish a fresh, separate Internet brand for those services, but it also has confused some users more familiar with the company’s traditional MSN Internet branding strategy.
Christopher Payne, corporate vice president of search at the company, called the formal launch "a significant milestone for our services business, with our core search and monetization platform ready for prime time.”
"We now have the base to weave search through our services in ways that bring value to customers," he added. "This is just the beginning. We look forward to continued investment in search to deliver services that bring new levels of control and personalization to the Web experience."
Among other changes, Live Search will include improved ways to refine a search engine query so a user can better differentiate whether they are searching, for, say, the jaguar animal, car or Apple Computer Inc. operating system, said Payne.
It also has improved how people can search for and view images, Payne said.
Microsoft said it folded upgrades and improvements, based on "extensive feedback and testing," into its search services since they went live in beta form earlier this year.
Although the search engine was in beta for a relatively short time, the company believed enough progress had been made to release it globally after examining user feedback, meeting with consumers and studying search behavior, said Derrick Connell, a Microsoft search business general manager. Connell called the release a "watershed moment" for Microsoft.
Alive at Live
The Live.com site is part of what will be additional rollouts of Microsoft’s Windows Live strategy in coming months, the company said, as it steps up efforts to deliver more services directly to consumers and business users over the Web.
The Live.com site is meant to be used as a personal search home page, where Web searches, news search, image searches and local searches can be conducted, and additional links to shopping sites and other favorite Web sites can be stored. The home pages can be customized with RSS feeds and other content, much the way Yahoo and Google pages can be tweaked to match a user’s personal interests.
Microsoft said its new Web search will return with more quick and precise results than the beta version. Prior to the latest version of Live Search, the average search from query to final results–including time spent performing searches to refine the results–took 11 minutes, Connell said. And half the time, those searches ended fruitlessly. That happened when people clicked on a link, refined the query, and not finding what they needed, gave up, he said. "For a large population of searchers, they want to run a query and get the answer they need" right away, he said.
Microsoft has taken a page from the Google playbook by making the Windows Live home page somewhat Spartan, featuring just the logo, search field, and a few links. On the results page, however, a new "related searches" feature sometimes appears on the right side of the screen, above the sponsored ads. This feature employs an algorithm that uses the previous queries and results of others who performed the same search.
Another feature, which is similar to a Google function, runs a search on the contents of a given destination site, eliminating the need to use the site’s own search function, which is almost never as powerful as a major search engine.
Microsoft has said it would spend around US$500 million this year to boost its services strategy around Windows Live. CEO Steve Ballmer has also said he expects Microsoft to invest a couple of billion dollars in all to create a better search engine and complementary search advertising platform, the latter known as AdCenter. Ballmer is also on record as saying that Microsoft can climb to the top of the search world, but said it would likely be a several-year-long project.
Microsoft also improved the image search process. Connell said the company’s research showed more than half of people would click "next" when perusing search results, meaning the image they were looking for did not appear in the first batch of results. He said Microsoft solved that problem by putting all image query results on a single page with a slider bar that controls the size of thumbnails.
Slow and Steady?
Microsoft is in catch-up mode on the Web search front. In July, according to comScore Networks, Google sites were responsible for 43.7 percent of all U.S. online searches. Yahoo sites were responsible for 28.8 and Microsoft sites handled 12.8 percent of all U.S. online searches.
It may not be enough, however, for Microsoft to wrest market share from the big search guns in the near term. That’s because, in order to get users to change, Microsoft would have to blow away Google and Yahoo.
"Microsoft is unfortunately tasked with developing an obviously better engine, and a better overall user experience, in order to get people to change what is now habitual behavior," said Sterling Market Intelligence analyst Greg Sterling. "The task at hand is extremely difficult given entrenchment in the search marketplace."
"It is not perfect, but it is a very good user experience," Sterling told TechNewsWorld.
Windows Live is the overarching brand name for a growing family of Web services that Microsoft is testing and delivering to consumers and businesses. At latest count, there are more than 40 properties branded "Windows Live" that are in various phases of rollout. Microsoft is making some of its Windows Live properties available as free, ad-supported services; it is charging for others.
Microsoft understands that even a modest-sized slice of the search advertising pie would mean millions in new revenue, and appears to be positioned to move up in the marketplace, according to Info-Tech Senior Research Analyst Carmi Levy.
A number of other Microsoft search-specific properties remain in beta, including Windows Live Academic Search, Windows Live Product Search and Windows Live QnA.
The launch of Live Search, Levy added, "levels the search engine playing field and provides serious competition" for Google and Yahoo.