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How Objective Is Microsoft's Search?
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."
people that are still using MSN as their search engine might not know the difference and that's more of the point I believe.
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.
Although Linux India pointing to linuxsucks.com is almost too funny.
linuxsucks.com pays for high msn search rankings?
Wow, some people really DO have an axe to grind.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Right you are. Interestingly, I would never have noticed that had you not pointed it out. Google, at least, does a much better job separating the sponsored links from the results (and the sponsored links are more appropriate to the search, too, I might add).
At this stage of the game, MSN doesn't look like much of a threat to the One True Search Engine.
yes, *but* with the pretty lackluster separators distinguishing between the 3 sections *and* featured sites getting numbered in the same sequence as the "real" results how many people will notice?
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What people don't take into account is that search engines are not required to be objective. Typically, and yes this is a fallacy, people expect the news to be objective. The press is thought to have a certain responsibility for being both fair, accurate and objective. People take this inherent belief and extrapolate it to search engines. MSN does not have to be objective. Google doesn't have to be objective. However, Google's whole premise is to help people find what they want fast, and they do it very well. If they didn't, people would not use it. MSN, too, wants to help people find things fast as well, but it might appear that they perhaps slant the search results just a tad. Maybe not, I don't know. My point is, if they do, that's fine because they are under no obligation to not do so. Ideally, information would be free to all people, with no hidden agendas in the presentation. Ideally, communism works great, too.
Don't be a zoa (zealous overbearing ass), be happy!
Never attribute to malice what you can explain by stupidity.
Indian search on Windows. Only 10th result is good. First one is Windows Media Player, 2-6 are about Tablet PC with the same page for WinXP for Tablets appearing twice. There are also such wonders of relevance as Windows into the Soul of Satyajit Ray and Windows to the Universe - Jupiter.
Search for Windows at MSN is only marginally better. The poster of the story overlooked that first 4-6 results are "Featured sites", which (as well as "sponsored") is the marketese for "advertisements". Amazon will happily sell to MSN searchers practically everything. Heck, the second result for shit offers that I "Purchase Expensive Shit" on Amazon. I shit you not.
There are other gems at the MSN, like a "featured" result, suggesting that "MSN 8 offers a better browsing experience: Try it free for 60 days." when you search for netscape or gnu.org results starting after 12th position when you search for gnu. The first result, of course, being the famous E-gnu.com African Safari Travel...
MSN (despite their claims to the contrary) is a mix between marketing crap and inferior technology. Thanks, I will pass.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
If Microsoft wants to compete and beat Google then the results of a search will have to be relevant. If they are not, then people will continue to use Google.
Would you continue to use a particular phone book if it failed to supply you with accurate or consistent phone numbers? Of course not and you would tell your friends the same thing. Word of mouth is still the most powerful force the Internet has and if the Microsoft search engine supplies searches with "sponsored" links or sub-quality links that do fuck all for your search then that is going to get around.
End of story.
Their search is wierd ... it is a cross between a search and a directory.
They have the paid "feature sites", then the "web directory sites", and only then the rest of the stuff, which autmoatically puts all the non-commercial things onto page 2. Screw that. I prefer Google, mainly because the paid-for stuff is at the side and yoou cna get right to the results faster.
The main demographic for /. is people that are into high technology and understand it
It's only logical that the majority are going to hate what Microsoft is and does.
msn.com: 1 - 15 ao about 542 [pages containing] "linux"
google.com: 1 - 10 of about 57,500,000
so?
run a search on dmoz.org, see how many you get.
Run a search for 'Microsoft'. You'll also get less on MSN than google.
Hint: msn is not an 'all the web' search engine.
Microsoft has been proven in court to be a monopoly, and this is how monopolies work.
People should not fear their government. Governments should fear their people.
And they only started doing this under pressure from people who figured out what was going on.
Really, now? And I suppose they only stopped carrying graphical ads when folks complained, right? (Hint: Google's advertising was clearly deliniated from Day 1 -- I've been using it since before they had ads at all, and have no clue whatsoever wtf you're talking about).
Not all companies are soulless -- they just look that way when you're wearing your cynic-colored glasses. I've been at a few engineering-driven companies (one of which, sadly, *stopped* being engineering-driven partway through my tenure) and there really are places where decisions are made based on making a product that we (the engineers making the thing) would personally want to buy, and treating our customers the way we expect to be treated ourselves.
Of course, some of the $@#%^ marketing and strategic-management slimeballs *do* have a tendency to come in and mess all that up in the effort to make a quick buck... but they're not everywhere. "All" companies aren't soulless -- unless you insist on looking at them that way.
Not exactly. MSN says that:
So the very top sites are not necessarily advertizing driven. It appears to me that they're heavily driven by Microsoft's own interests. They want to drive you to other Microsoft owned content, like Encarta, MSN, and some businesses (including advertizers) who already do business with MSN.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
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).
Well if MS does indeed out-Google Google, then good for them. But they obviously have long way to go if that's what they really are planning.
As far as resources go, MS may have 40B in the bank, but Google has the ENTIRE internet behind it and that's not something to take lightly. Outside of OS's, web browsers, and office suites, Microsoft hasn't exactly done well with every venture they've tried. Look at Smartphones,TVboxes,Consoles, etc. Beyond its desktop monopoly its not as successful a company as one would think. I guess we will see if they are able to leverage their OS to force users into making MS their default search engine. Up till now setting MSN to the homepage has ensured they can claim the page hit crown from Yahoo, but we all know when it comes to actually finding things on the Internet everyone goes elsewhere.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
It's not that they have a soul, it's just that they have a certain image of their company (which they apparently think will help them with profits in either the short or long run) they want to project onto consumers, and being unbiased, clear, and honest is part of that image.
It's not that they have a soul, it's just that they have a certain image of their company (which they apparently think will help them with profits in either the short or long run) they want to project onto consumers, and being unbiased, clear, and honest is part of that image.
Yea, but that is just as bad as having a soul...;)
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
This might take a bit, but bear with me. On google.com, you can search for how many times a site is linked from another site. You use the command (e.g.) link:www.websitehere.com This search is very cool to discern how popular a site is. For example, google.com itself is linked almost a half million times. Yahoo, well over a million times.
However, www.msn.com has a lot fewer than half million. Fewer than a thousand even! In fact, there are only 51 (yes, Fifty One) People in the world who link to www.msn.com. www.MSNBC fares even worse with 7 (SEVEN) links to it. Compare this to www.cnn.com with 74,000 links.
What does this mean? Well, if you consider these links as votes (which they are... if you like a site, you link it from your website or blog), it means that no one likes MSN or MSNBC at all. But, i wonder, why do people still go to these sites? The only answer i can give is this: Monopolistic practice. If you have almost a complete monopoly on the desktop, and you link your website on every one, of course you'll get some people to go to it. Could this example be used in a court case? Possibly, i guess (IANAL, but my bro-in law is
Do what you want with this info, i just thought the /. crowd would like to see this.
I cant remember if this has been posted before, thus the new /. slogan: News for the amnesiac. Stuff that mattered.
I swear, back when I was using IE 3, whenever I typed in www.netscape.com it would come up with a page not found window. But the second time I went to it, it went there fine.
--- to swing on the spiral...
Your examination is both superficial and incomplete. The first seven or so links on the Microsoft site are adverts and sites that want your money, ignoring them for purposes of comparison is kind of like ignoring the first seven hours of your day. Secondly, the choice of sites and the words used are highly derogotory and liable to give the user a bad impresion. Notice that Microsoft treat's itself better than Red Hat when you search on Microsoft. The general page is put before cheasy adverts and the support page. The case for Linux is reversed, throwing the user at the problems after first, but only after the MSN Linux page. Microsoft treats Windows well too and, of course, does not mention Debian, the Free Software Foundation or anything smacking of Freedom. For a detailed analysis of the wording of Microsoft's summaries listed see this earlier post and please put down the crack pipe - Microsoft's search engine is no where near a match for Google and never will be.
I never believed they would ever quit resorting to name calling, did you? When it backfired on them, they have shifted to these indirect tactics, using proxies and now they have morphed their search engine into a very impressive double speak generator.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Why should MS be required to provide objective information about its competitors? It's not like Slashdot or any Linux-oriented news sites, let alone the web pages run by companies and groups that make Linux software and distributions are even close to providing fair and accurate information about Microsoft products.
Nobody beats netscape in the area of objective search: try searching for 'hotmail' at netscape.com. First result is ... Netscape Mail. They claim it is 'powered by Google', but obviously they "tweak" google results to promote their own and probably other's paid services.
(I've discovered this recently when using internet kiosk with netscape browser).
MSDOS: 20+ years without remote hole in the default install