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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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