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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."
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
Not true! There are tons of people who hate Microsoft without even knowing what Slashdot is!
FLR
I can only imagine the look on thier faces when they see how many times "Linux" has been queried on their search engine in a single day.
MSN Search: Linux -- More Useful Everyday
:)
so they got something right
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.
Linuxiso.org is a featured site. We even get a little MS butterfly.C HECKED&FORM= MSNH&v=1&q=linuxiso
http://search.msn.com/results.asp?RS=
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.
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.
A search on msn.com also brings up the rather amusing
http://tech.msn.com/software/OS/Linux/
section of the MSN website. Watch MS try and sell you boxed RedHat!
I bet the people who wrote that Apache->IIS migration page are pretty excited to see people actually reading it all of a sudden.
Latest News: microsoft
It cuts both ways :)
I was starting up an MS program today and came across the following error:
SoBigF is not your default worm
would you like to make this your
default worm?
click yes cancel
MoFscker
It's pretty obvious that the results on MSN are biased. Do a search for open source on MSN. You get back a bunch of results that don't really apply. That is, except for the first result, which is an article on Infoworld about how SCO is hurting the open source movement. Now do the same search on Google--the results are _much_ more appropriate.
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
Just for giggles, I did a search for "SCO" and you wouldn't believe what I found at the #1 "Featured Site":
# Santa Cruz Operation Top Pick
Long-time vendor of UNIX for PCs has made the transition to Linux. [emphasis mine] Learn about their consulting services and their software offerings.
www.sco.com
The dogcow says "Moof!"
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.
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.