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How Objective Is Microsoft's Search?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the which-pants-do-geese-wear dept.

bot writes "There have been a number of stories on Microsoft trying to do a 'Netscape' on Google.. what would a world in which Microsoft provides search look like? A search for 'linux' on msn.com give amazon and ebay as the top two results, and a microsoft site promoting migration from Linux to Windows as the fourth listing. A search on MSN India is even more amusing -- the top result is a dead link, and the second one is Linuxsucks.com."

24 of 470 comments (clear)

  1. Actually, the top links are ads by Surak · · Score: 5, Informative

    The top links are for 'featured sites' (~= 'ads') and 'sponsored sites' (~= 'ads') and after you get past the ads, the results are roughly similar to google's results, with linux.org and redhat.com being in the same #1 and #3 spots, and linuxjournal surpassing linux.com as the #2 spot.

    --
    My journal has hot /. gossip.
    1. Re:Actually, the top links are ads by no+reason+to+be+here · · Score: 2, Informative

      The top links are for 'featured sites' (~= 'ads') and 'sponsored sites' (~= 'ads') and after you get past the ads, the results are roughly similar to google's results, with linux.org and redhat.com being in the same #1 and #3 spots, and linuxjournal surpassing linux.com as the #2 spot.

      Yes, the difference being that it is not easily discernible that the "featured" and "sponsored" sites are paid for or some such. All ads on google are obviously ads. furthermore, on msn.com you have to scroll down about 1/3 of the page to get to the real, untainted results.

      i'd also like to point out:
      msn.com: 1 - 15 ao about 542 [pages containing] "linux"
      google.com: 1 - 10 of about 57,500,000

      --
      my pet machine
    2. Re:Actually, the top links are ads by Pharmboy · · Score: 5, Informative

      And they only started doing this under pressure from people who figured out what was going on. Google is a souless company, just like all the others.

      Not true. I know for a fact they have a soul. We have tried to get them to mix ads with results because we are a huge advertiser and want better return for our investment. You can't even BUY your way to the top of the advertising list. You place a bid, but the highest bid doesn't get the best position, it is also based on "relevence". They have used this method for over a year now.

      --
      Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
    3. Re:Actually, the top links are ads by Rick_Clark · · Score: 2, Informative

      The "Featured Sites" are not necessarily ads. If you serch for "linux iso" linuxiso.org is a "Top Pick" and a "Featured Site" and I assure you we would never pay M$ a dollar. WE need to be careful not to jump to the wrong conclusion. I am sure some of the featured sites are ads, but not all.

    4. Re:Actually, the top links are ads by MillionthMonkey · · Score: 4, Informative

      I guess that a massive majority of the general population knows to use google, but the fact that IE defaults to MSN (and much of that massive majority doesn't know how to stop it) is scary.

      It isn't straightforward- you have to do a bunch of registry edits to make IE automatically submit search requests to google.com instead of msn.com. (See here for details on how to do this.)

      Some ISPs like to put banners in IE's title bar (e.g. "Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters - Brought to you by Verizon!") You can get rid of this (when you're finished cleaning the spyware off your non-computer-savvy relatives' computers, that is) by going to \HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main and deleting or editing a REG_SZ key there called "Window Title", which is usually put there by ISP software installations. Mine says "This is a necessary piece of the operating system!"

      Ironically, I find the only thing that makes IE usable at all for me is the current Google toolbar, which implements the popup-blocking that Microsoft neglected to include in their user-hostile browser. With no popup blocking, simple everyday computer tasks like surfing for porn are like walking in quicksand.

    5. Re:Actually, the top links are ads by Pharmboy · · Score: 4, Informative

      You just need to alter the words you get listed. Search for a product model number, and you'll get no hits for reviews or real sites, but hundreds for 'shopping comparison' sites like Dooyoo, Shopsmary and kelkoo. (ie I tried to find info about a TV - Panasonic TX28PL1, try it for yourself).

      Oh, we are top listed :D With anything related to our business. The key is how you setup the website, not by depending on the customers to use different terms. That is my job, above all else. Its more art than science, but google also considers 'click thru' as part of 'relevence' so if you CHANGE your ad, you start over. The key is not NOT change your ad, which makes you start over in relevence. Learned this the hard way. Most of this is not documented, and frankly, I wouldn't give anyone the info I have learned, for any price. Anyone who *IS* selling this info is selling garbage or misinformation. I have bought enough of it to know. There is still much more I don't know about their methods than I do know.

      It just so happens we ARE relevent for our search terms, at least the one's we care enough to pay a few dollars EACH for. But we would still love to see the ads mixed in, in a purely selfish way (of course) to make more money from people who are adverse to ads. Most of our customers only seach when they are ready to buy anyway, so its not critical, it would just be handy.

      On the other hand, as a USER of google, I would hate it if they did that. If I had to choose, I choose mix them because I get a % of sales, and yes, I am a greedy fucker working very hard toward the day I do not have to do this for a living. :D

      --
      Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
    6. Re:Actually, the top links are ads by Alsee · · Score: 5, Informative

      'featured sites' (~= 'ads')

      No. The top 4 results are not paid advertizements. They are HAND PICKED by MSN. About Featured Sites results.

      Featured Sites are links that MSN Search editors believe are likely to be particularly relevant and useful.

      It is quite reasonable to look at the objectivity of that editorial process. Rather than including one of the top sites in Linux news they provided a link on how to UNINSTALL Linux and other open source software. I find it hard to believe that link is one of the top 4 "relevant and useful" results for a general search on Linux. At best it look like a clear case of editorial bias, and at worst it is deceptive concidering that is it far from clear that the top 4 results are "editorial".

      -

      --
      - - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
    7. Re:Actually, the top links are ads by stinkfoot · · Score: 2, Informative
      Ironically, I find the only thing that makes IE usable at all for me is the current Google toolbar, which implements the popup-blocking that Microsoft neglected to include in their user-hostile browser.

      try firebird (has native popup blocking):
      http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firebird/

      ...and add the the google toolbar extension:
      http://googlebar.mozdev.org/

  2. msn.ca by thebatlab · · Score: 4, Informative

    A search from msn.ca on the term "linux" gave some reasonable results I think. There was Linux.com as the first, followed by sites like linuxcanada.com, some provincial/city linux organizations from places like Edmonton, BC and Alberta, some links to online linux certification classes.

    Doesn't seem too unreasonable to me and it was interesting to see how tailored the results were given there were a lot of canadian sites up there and canadian area linux organization links. I have to say I was actually impressed given what I was ready to see from the headline of this article

  3. Re:Pretty obvious by Kpau · · Score: 5, Informative

    In all my business and personal dealings with Microsoft, I've always gotten the feeling I'm really dealing with a maturity level equivalent to the "100sr sux!! We r0xx0rd U!!! doofuses that infest many online games. Really... Bill and his companions may use complete sentences but anyone who's worked internally with the folks knows the "if you don't agree with me, you suck and are stupid" culture inside MS. They can put all the suits on they want and have thug Ballmer dance the monkey dance... but they really are kind of pathetic.

  4. Slightly O/T but.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    netcraft reports linuxsucks.com as running Apache on FreeBSD...

  5. How objective is www.linuxsucks.com? by Anita+Coney · · Score: 4, Informative

    The domain www.linuxsucks.com is owned by a company called InfoSpace Inc. Microsoft has VERY strong ties to InfoSpace Inc. as Microsoft featured it as a company that saved money and improved reliability by using Microsoft's garbage... er... I mean software:

    http://www.microsoft.com/resources/casestudies/C as eStudy.asp?CaseStudyID=13920

    And there's more than that, do a search for "Infospace inc" and Microsoft on Google and you'll find many more connections between the companies.

    So, don't let the amateurish appearance fool you, while linuxsucks.com appears to be written by ordinary people simply expressing a point of view, it's actually a well funded website with a clear agenda.

    --
    If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
    1. Re:How objective is www.linuxsucks.com? by Squidgee · · Score: 4, Informative
      Oh, and for those too lazy to read my writeup, I figure I'll make life easy for yas =p From my Journal:

      "Well, I just couldn't believe the insanity of this claim, so I did some research. Turns out Infospace, Inc does own linuxsucks.com. However, it was originally owned by Go2Net (scroll down to the bottom), and Go2Net was bought by Infospace Inc in 2000, so the domain is now hosted by Infospace Inc/Go2Net. Go2Net offers hosting, and is therefore hosting the site as a subsidiary of Infospace Inc; it has been hosting LinuxSucks.com since before Infospace Inc's acquisition.

      Hence, LinuxSucks.com is an amateur effort; it was neither created, nor funded my Infospace Inc, nor was it created or funded by Microsoft.

      As for Microsoft's supposed ties to Infospace Inc? Microsfot did a case study of Infospace Inc's use of "Microsoft Message Queing 3.0", and how it "Reduces Costs While Improving Reliability at InfoSpace". Hardly the deep, cash infused ties this tin-foil hat wearing zealot implies.

      Sorry, but that was just SO moronic I couldn't stand it."

  6. Red Hat more expensive than Windows? by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 2, Informative
    I like their tech.msn.com review:

    Red Hat 9.0 is a boon for those who already use it, but it's too expensive to warrant a switch from Windows. Try SuSE (or the free Red Hat) for a better mix of price and features.

    Oh yeah. That's quality reporting there :)

  7. in all fairness by dagar17 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Does noone remember the google search "go to hell" with microsoft as the top result. This is bad but its not the first time we've seen biased search results.

  8. Not evil, just useless by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    The MSN search is not necessarily evil, just totally helpless. MSN only find 542 documents containing "linux" while Google finds 21,000,000. The fact that Amazon comes up first just means that MSN search has very bad rankings.

  9. Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative
    Q: How objective is Microsoft's search?


    A: It isn't. At all. Next question.

  10. Poor search results mean poor robots? by dd · · Score: 2, Informative
    Does anyone have any good info on the robot engine used by msn to cull info on the web? I found a a reference to MSNBOT on the web. So in one of my more active web trees I count 4600 visits from googlebot, and in the same 9 month period 180 visits from MSNBOT. The last visit from googlebot this evening, and the last one from MSNBOT at the end of june.

    Well, that seems telling to me! There isn't enough web crawling from MSNBOT to justify a search engine, from what I've seen. I see _way_ more traffic from the IBM almaden web bot (945 visits), for example.

    Of course, this begs the question: who is doing the web crawling for MSN? I find it hard to believe that MSNBOT is the main crawler. Today, for example I found girafabot in my logs. A visit to their web site shows an association with MSN..

  11. Re:The True MSN telling by WhiteBandit · · Score: 4, Informative

    Actually, I recently emailed google asking them this exact same question. The following is their response:

    Thank you for your note. Yes, we do offer this kind of search. To find the pages that link to any given URL (say www.stanford.edu , for instance) go to the Google advanced search page at http://www.google.com/advanced_search and do 'link' search. If you do not want to use our advanced page, you can perform a link search directly from the Google search box by typing
    link:Stanford.edu

    or

    link:www.Stanford.edu

    This link search, however, may not return a comprehensive set of results. The results show a sample of the links that point to a page, but this list is in no way indicative of the link structure utilized by Google to formulate a page's PageRank.

    To obtain a comprehensive list of the links that point to a page, perform a Google search on your URL. From the result page displayed, select the "Find the web pages that contain the term" link and Google will provide you with the web pages that mention the address.

    Regards,

    The Google Team

  12. there is no MSN search engine by georgescriban · · Score: 5, Informative

    Searching search.msn.com for "linux" will really highlight the weakness of MSN's search features -- the results are actually supplied by three different companies, then stitched together.

    MSN provides up to five "featured" sites for a search phrase, usually to companies that have marketing relationships with MSN (like Amazon or eBay).

    Overture gets to throw three "sponsored" sites at the top of every page of results, so these are companies who bid to be shown for a particular search term.

    LookSmart provides the "directory" results. Of course, you get into the LookSmart directory by paying a fee to have your URL(s) associated with certain (a) certain search phrase(s). In the case of a search for "linux", you have to wade through 400+ directory results before you get to...

    "Web" results, which are provided by Inktomi. Inktomi's engine collects URLs in one of two ways: through a regular crawl of the Web (like any search engine), and through a fee-based "paid inclusion" program where companies can submit their sites through a direct XML feed into the Inktomi index.

    At least, that's the way it works for now. Given that both Inktomi and Overture have been bought by Yahoo!, there's very little chance that Microsoft wants MSN to fatten a competitor's coffers. Microsoft's moving as fast as they can to get their own technology in shape to replace the outside vendors. But MSN Search isn't powered by Microsoft quite yet.

  13. Re:The True MSN telling by kasperd · · Score: 2, Informative

    Every /. and k5 page where i have a post should then come up
    /. has a lot of large generated html pages, and following links you can find every single comment viewed in a lot of different ways. Google simply doesn't crawl all of it. And it seems google did not implement features for inteligent crawling of slashdot.

    Google should fix that but i assume it takes quite a bit of googlepower to implement
    The link: feature is broken, and I think they should fix it, or at least stop advertising a feature they cannot make work.

    --

    Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
  14. MSN's search is not a user service... by qtp · · Score: 4, Informative

    Although MSN would have you believe that thier search feature is a service offered to users, it is clearly a marketing tool from end to end.

    In order to be listed at MSN, you must deal with Looksmart, a company that touts itself as "the global leader in paid inclusions". In other words, Microsoft's MSN Search is not in the business of helping you find what you are looking for, but the business of making sure you go where thier customers want you to go.

    Google, on the other hand is a search company, that specialized in search technologies, for your corporate intranet or for your web page before they added advertising, first, to thier search page and later to your own page.

    While there is no doubt that Google Advertising is a large part of thier revenue, the success of Google Adverts is due to thier apropriateness to the viewer of the page. This appropriateness is only possible if there is an attempt to keep the pagerank formula somewhat objective.

    IMHO, Google's business model is the stronger, because they are not attempting the impossible task of keeping the viewer while simultaneously attempting to manipulate him (like MSN is), and the advertising model that Google has created is the only advertising that I would allow on a page of my own.

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    Read, L
  15. Re:The True MSN telling by localghost · · Score: 2, Informative

    Results using this method:

    www.google.com - 638,000
    www.cnn.com - 624,000
    www.yahoo.com - 381,000
    www.msnbc.com - 199,000
    www.msn.com - 76,600
    www.searchking.com - 1,010

    Google still has significantly more than MSN. More than Yahoo, even.

  16. Re:The True MSN telling by patriceCH · · Score: 2, Informative

    Try alltheweb.com. The link search seems to better over there.

    The following statistic has been generated using
    link:domain -site:domain

    yahoo.com: 73,025,040
    google.com: 20,613,802
    msn.com: 15,157,713
    msnbc.com: 3,042,855

    Yahoo scores mainly because they have lots of other domains like geocities or four11.