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Why Microsoft Wants to Buy Google
xihr writes "Harry Fletcher writes in The Inquirer about an obvious discrepancy between searches for "linux windows" on Google and MSN; the former comes up with almost 9 million hits, but the latter only comes up with -- wait for it -- 16. The author then speculates on Microsoft's ulterior motives for their attempted (and failed) purchase of Google."
Even funnier is a search for 'Linux' on MSN. Amazon, eBay, and two Microsoft sites, one of them about 'Alternatives to Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP', come up before Linux.org does. According to MSN there are only 365 sites about Linux on the Web. Google says there are 92,000,000.
Biased? Microsoft? Never!
- Wine Development HQ
- Linux Online
- freshmeat.net
- WinLinux 2003
- Red Hat
- Linux.com
- XChat
- NeTraverse
- Opera Software
- Cygwin
- Microsoft Linux
- Operating System Sucks-Rules-O-Meter
- Linux + Windows 95 mini-HOWTO
- Download Opera
The list looks like a pretty good list of top sites.The fact that MSN Search is willing to whore their entire first page of search results to the top bidder is another matter altogether. It makes their search hard to use, it confuses people, it is dihonest, and I'm sure glad that there are other alternatives. They get people to use MSN search because it is the default search engine for the Internet Explorer browser. Many people use it becasue they don't know about the alternatives. Sound like their other anti-competative behavior?
Microsoft just wants to correct them. Linux doesn't exist, darn it.
Maybe its because Microsoft's internet search sucks, and they want to assimilate some new search tools.
They wont understand either, they will take what they see first as 'results' and move on with that. By controlling the first 10% of what the average consumer sees, they can manipulate consumer opinion and knoledge. Sure *we* can see past this and get facts, but *we* dont line their pockets either...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
For a while, I've been looking at alternative search engines. I still use Google as my primary engine, but I hate having such a strong reliance on a single tool. Any tool I don't own and keep locally could go away at any point or change and become useless to me.
The closest thing to Google I've found to date is AllTheWeb.com. AllTheWeb started out as an experimental second site by Lycos, with the apparent goal of being a Google clone. The thing matured quickly, being an objective and statistics-driven search site, unlike Lycos' own site where sites buy placement. AllTheWeb was later purchased from Lycos by Overture, even more famous for paid placement and (IMHO) slimy advertising tactics. But for the six months or so since they made the purchase, they seem to have left it alone. They may well also be trying to clone Google completely. And if Google suddenly sours as a search tool, this may well finally pay off big for them.
Give AllTheWeb a try. I'm not petitioning anyone to switch over and start using ATW as their only engine, but make sure you know that alternative is there and - more importantly - make sure Google's new owners know that you're aware of an alternative. It just may be enough to keep them honest.
Because if they did that they would create market doubt and user doubt on the verracity of google. They are whatthey are now not because people like the "google" word but because they offer the most correct result up to now, without a vendor/advertising bias. Should they switch to the same result than MSN the outcry would be enormous and rightfully the monopoly comision could again look at such practice of supressing concurrence by borderline legal means.
In the first case (market/user doubt) a new search engine would quickly birth. Whether he could replace google is a matter but i forsee million of geek switching imemdiatly to the new search engine.
In the second case in the US and in EU a lot of outcry on unfair competition would rise, and that is quite not what they need at them moment especially with the EU inquiries. Even more I suspect if they shunt down the link then the Eu would quickly raise a brow even quicker than with the media player.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
I went to MSN.com because that sounded crazy. Not only was it crazy but it was a lie. When I went to search.msn.com I typed linux windows and got many, many links to linux sites. This is just false and slashdot ought to be more responsible.
And yet, channels on Microsoft's "Active Desktop" didn't last long. Most people disabled it.
As you pointed out, you must go to the NEXT PAGE, which is unacceptable. If someone just looks at the first page, they only get the 16 'sponsered' results of LINUX->MS migration techiniques and biased spec sheets.
You just easily and quickly proved how much of an idiot this Harry Fletcher really is...:)
always clear why Microsoft wanted Google
"he who controls the spice controls the universe"
or i guess in this case
he who controls the search controls the product placement
In this day and time no one would argue that information equals power. and while microsoft may be filtering results that a user may acquire, its all marketing. Microsoft has tried to bust into the search engine business and failed. Search engines are powerful portals to a world we dont know anything about. the simple truth is if they control the most popular search engine then they have an incredibly powerful marketing tool. And while granted there biggest treat is Linux. there are other treats out there and if they control ones access to that information then they have power.
and when people try to cry foul, well its not microsofts fault you use their website. Its hard to make antitrust case against them when no one forces you to use that search engine.
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll
Search google and msn for "linux advantages"
I got 450k hits on msn and only 350k hits from google.
The first page on msn were positive articles... not links to MS sites saying there were none.
Clearly someone at MSN has screwed up!
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
For example... Beer.
Google versus MSN
Or how about... trucks?
Google versus MSN
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Bill!! Save us! We actually have weirdos who wade through 9 million hits! Save us, please! 16 is all we need!
but enter "linux on windows" and you receive over 9 million results. Hmmm.....
When I put an incomplete term into the address bar of Windows Explorer on my Winxp workstation, I am often redirected to the MSN search page.
Apparently, IE isn't the only MS program that defaults to using MSN search.
Just tested it on win2k, not only did I get MSN Search, I even get a popup!
Where's my tinfoil hat?!?
Just for fun, I tried a few other searches. In order of relevance:
linux windows - 16 results
microsoft is a fundamentally evil monopolist - 115 results
windows - 2373 results
microsoft ate my balls - 6207 results
so we can all see where their heads are at...
What a strange bird is the pelican, his beak can hold more than his belly can.
WOW what an awesome conspiracy theory. Microsoft comes up with some pretty devious things in that evil volcano lair of theirs.
what a surprise?
.asp on that. when the lights come up, there'll be no going back, & no where to hide.
as previously postdead buy mynuts won:
gnu millennium spells doom for stock markup frauds, aka payper liesense corepirate nazi execrable, aka the walking dead
that's right. J. Public et AL has yet to become involved in open/honest 'net communications/commerce in a meaningful way. that's mostly due to the MiSinformation suppLIEd buy phonIE ?pr? ?firm?/stock markup FraUD execrable, etc...
truth is, there's no better/more affordable/effective way that we know of, for J. to reach other J.'s &/or their respective markets.
the recipe is:
consult with/trust in yOUR creator. vote with yOUR wallet. more breathing. seek others of non-agressive intentions/behaviours. that's the spirit.
use key words/indexing to identify yourself/your products.
the overbullowned greed/fear based phonIE marketeers are self eliminating by their owned greed/fear/ego based evile MiSintentions. they must deny the existence of the power that is dissolving their ability to continue their self-centered evile behaviours.
as the lights continue to come up, you'll see what we mean. meanwhile, there are plenty of challenges, not the least of which is the planet/population rescue (from the corepirate nazi/walking dead contingent) initiative.
EVERYTHING is going to change, despite the lameNT of the evile wons. you can bet your
we weren't planted here to facilitate/perpetuate the excesses of a handful of Godless felons. you already know that? yOUR ONLY purpose here is to help one another. any other pretense is totally false.
pay attention (to yOUR environment, for example). that's quite affordable, & leads to insights on preserving life as it should/could/will be again. everything's ALL about yOUR motives.
THis is only a problem for people who don't think to click the Next button... oh wait, that's 90% of everyone who uses the internet.
In other words, even though they acknowledge the exisence of these sites, they hide them, and that's bad. We wouldn't be affected by this, just pissed, but most people will only see that page. This Is Bad.
Anyone try that with "DRM bad"? I think that that's something else to look out for...
"73% of quotes on the Internet are made up" -Ben Franklin
Could Microsoft's desire to buy Google have to do with Google actually making a profit? Seriously, Fletcher's claims of Microsoft trying to censor web content is preposterous. MSN search results are "limited" is because sites that want to be "found" on MSN have to pay. No one has to pay to be on Google. Google makes money because advertisers know that's the first place anyone will go to find anything on anything. With that kind of audience, Google can ask a lot for page space.
I think you all need to take a step back and look at the big picture. It isn't about censorship. It's about profit, pure and simple. Would you take over a competitor that was failing and had absolutely no potential to turn itself around?
GOBACK.
Searched the web for Linux.
Did you mean: Windows
Searched the web for Free Software.
Did you mean: Capitalism
Searched the web for speaker bracelets
Did you mean: Microsoft Windows
Searched the web for candle trucks
Did you mean: Microsoft Windows
...And, it returns a pop-under for your trouble. So, I get sponsered links, and then a pop under, and then another click, and I can get the results I was looking for.
Wow, the mind boggles.
Both are mature companies but the way Microsoft sometimes unnecesarily acts can be harmful for its own image (sacking a guy, FUD war on Linux, Java support endless...), also the monopolistic overtures all the time; not that their products are useless, I use their OS (RH 8.0 too) and all other features(I couldnt get my Linuxant modem to work on Linux till now). Google is seen as a more ethical and geeky, community and programmer friendly company (topcoder contests and google lab, blogger etc). But I doubt they will be able to buy Gogle though they(along with IBM) are the company with max hard cash currently ... And MSN search is hardly used(unless the forced redirections from IE) Google will stay strong on that search engine front !
Or how about Evil Empire!
Google vs MSN
"Stop failing the Turing test!" -- Dilbert
However, It also points out the misleading nature of the MSN website, which may very well just be flaw in the MSN setup (or poor design). I tried 'Highlander', the first number of 'search results' was pretty small. However, upon reaching the end of the 'first' list (about 55 links), there was another that said about 359,000. I'm sure there is not a conspiracy against Immortals or people living in the various Hihlands around the world.
Searched from MSN (listed by number of results):
- Results 1-15 of about 1136552 containing "freebsd"
- Results 1-15 of about 341343 containing "openbsd"
- Results 1-15 of about 200091 containing "ipsec"
- Results 1-15 of about 96796 containing "postgres"
- Results 1-15 of about 9641 containing "plan9"
- Results 1-15 of about 408 containing "OS/2"
- Results 1-15 of about 365 containing "linux"
- Results 1-15 of about 113 containing "apache"
- Results 1-15 of about 76 containing "php"
- Results 1-15 of about 40 containing "mysql"
Clearly, those platforms that MS does not like are treated differently than less popular (and less threatening?) technologies. Or maybe Plan9 is finaly picking up steam.Google's best asset is the trust that people have in them to return useful unbiased results.
The moment that trust is lost, another search engine will gladly step forward to fill the void.
It would be a sad day indeed to see Google fall to Microsoft or other greedy commercial interests, but it would not be the end of the world.
Does anyone here think that Microsoft, just maybe, Wanted Google because it works better?
Does Everything MS do have to have some Ulterior "Lets do X to screw Linux today!" Motive behind it?
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
then what does it say about the quality of THIS search
Scraping the conspiracy icing away from the story, anyone in business with a head on their shoulders would want to buy Google.
Why?
Because it's good and it works and it's the best.
Anyway, what kind of person types in 'linux windows'? You tend to have a verb or adjective in there too, like comparison or review. Sounds like a classic case of someone hammering words into Google randomly, then writing a story based around the results - probably the result of writer's block. And does he really think MS would get away with it?
Crap, sensationalist, tin-foil journalism. Microsoft want to buy Google because it's the best search engine out there and they're probably the only company that has enough money swilling around to buy it at the moment. Period.
Let Microsoft buy Google if they want, people are starting to realise it's limitations and biases anyway. I think there should be a healthy turnover of search engines to keep things fresh. How about grub.org? Early days but looking promising. Distributed crawling of the web! Even better, someone with more knowledge than myself set up a non-profit, not affiliated with 'the global leader in paid search inclusion' project to do the same thing in our computer's spare time.
"This is crazy, you realise we could all go to jail for this?" - my manager, somewhere I used to work.
give him a break... after all he must count all of his $
Hasn't this story already been on slashdot at least a 1/2 dozen times????
Funny that this does not make it to the first page :-)
... Linux to have Start Button. Microsoft is working to incorporate the well known "Start" button from the Windows Platform ...
MSN search results
27: Microsoft Linux - the premier linux distro
Learn how you can use Microsoft Linux Technologies to expand your busness or your desktop.
www.mslinux.org
Just as a test I did a search for something obscure: rutabaga windows. I got the following:
Results 1-15 of about 738 containing "rutabaga windows"
{Results follow}
Doing the same with "linux windows" I get:
Results 1-15 of about 16 containing "linux windows"
{Results follow}
It's basically saying "There may be another page to look at, but hey, it's only one item so why bother? Maybe you should search for a nice Microsoft product instead." Only if you click the "next" button do you get:
Results 16-30 of about 8898833 containing "linux windows"
Does Microsoft have more than 16 results for "linux windows?" Absolutely. Do they lie on the first page of the search? The answer to that is yes as well, unless you really believe 8,898,833 pages is "about 16."
and you'll get this: Results 1-15 of about 16027165 containing "linux"
Hi, I'm Darl McBride. In the end, it's going to be $690 I take out of your backside. But don't worry -- my associate, Chris Sontag, will also be putting something back in again.
I hear that during a Google company meeting a couple weeks ago, the crowd was asked if they'd heard the rumor about Microsoft buying Google. Then they were asked to raise their hands if they believed the rumor. Only one person raised his hand - founder Larry Page. I like his sense of humor. ;)
Let see, on MSN a search for "Linux" turns up a total of 365 hits. A search for OpenBSD turns up about 251,143 hits. Clearly OpenBSD has 688 times as many articles/sites/distributors as Linux.
Try it. I think this pretty much speaks for itself.
the article never proved that MS was trying to buy google to run it into the ground. His proff consists of:
1) MS's search engine sucks.
2) Google's search engine is good.
3) MS wanted to buy Google
4) therefor MS wanted to run google into the ground and let thisr own service pimp for MS.
Once he assumes this important bit, he can make fun of MS, thus pulling in more readers. Man, I wish I could wrte garbage and get paid for it.
That little exercise showed no bias at all! Let me try my own experiment... I'll search for "powerpoint":
Google: 6,260,000 hits
MSN: 14 hits
I conclude that Microsoft is trying to kill their own PowerPoint product (even more than they want to kill Linux!). Thankfully, the people at Google must rely on PowerPoint so much, they want to make sure to keep the word out there.
Or... stay with me here... maybe Google has a more powerful and capable search engine that can harvest more results. I suppose its possible THAT could explain why Microsoft would want to buy them.
It's possible such a takeover could be blocked by European competition law (yes, I appreciate neither is a European company, but it's hardly viable to have google separately owned in Europe but owned by Microsoft in the States).
Does anybody know or has anybody read anything on what the US anti-trust position would be?
Results 1-15 of about 450796 containing "GNU/Linux"
Russe in Beton und Stahl, müde alles Material.
This is the type of evidence that should block such a purchase.
JAV
MSN:
34 pancakes
41 waffles
232 frogs
695 sky
3117 tree
Goooooogle - said "...about xxx,xxx"
791,000 pancakes
412,000 waffles
640,000 frogs
20,700,000 sky
37,600,000 tree
Which proves Microsoft hates pancakes, waffles, frogs, the sky and trees. Bastards!
Hrm. Interesting. I just ran these searches myself, and got contrary information to the parent.
linux on MSN: 365
linux on google: 65,100,000
windows on msn: 2373
windows on google: 67,900,000
This is contrary to the 95,000,000 search results for linux that are reported in the article. What's the deal? Maybe an ISP cache of google that's outdated?
Also, there's roughly a:
(using the 95 million figure)
260274/1 search ratio on linux for google/msn
28614/1 search ratio on windows for google/msn
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Click the "Next" button a few times on that "Linux Windows" search.
You'll see:
Results 31-45 of about 8897853
Search for "lineup windows" (72524 results) or "linux windowpane" (149 results); compared to 16 results for "linux windows" there's something fishy.
Would hate to Slashdot Google
Mirror
--
Everyone hates me because I'm paranoid.
This is one of the stupidest things I've seen posted on /. I can't believe people are just now seeing this.
Would you really go to http://www.fordvehicles.com to lookup a chevrolet? Of course not. So why is anyone bent out of shape going to microsoft's site to look for a competing OS???
To not appear like a total dumbass, take a spelling class.
The google mirrors/server farms are rarely perfectly syncronized.
would be refreshing?
.contracts renewed.
& oe =UTF-8&q=world+opinion+u.s.+war&btnG=Google+Search
/out at almost everywon whois experiencing the results of their owned whoreabull stock markup fraud/?pr? ?firm? hypenosys FUDgePacking(tm)?
maybe not to last gasper corepirate nazi puppets/hostages? the rest of US however, don't give a fud about getting your 'advertising'
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8
lookout bullow. get ready to see the light. tell 'em robbIE? tell 'em about the monIE. you're quick to
Try "evil empire microsoft" ... www.microsoft.com
The first result on MSN is
I would keep my damned perverted teenager away from those perverted websites.
I would note that 100 year floods can occur 2 years in a row, so the search for near-Earth asteroids should continue
I think 'Want to see my tattoo?' would be a more honest pick-up line than relying on an electronic beeper that goes off when I get near someone with supposed similar interests
Oh dang - wrong post - hmm.... maybe not -
From perverted teenager result
From 100 year flood search
From 'Want to see my tattoo?'
Just too much fun!
This is why corporations must be stopped. They are undermining the progress of humanity. It's obvious that there are some corporations that aren't biased, but there are quite a few like Microsoft who are, and who would gladly pull the wool over our eyes just to make a goddamn buck.
As people we have to stop them the only way we can. Boycott companies that don't adhere to strict ethical conduct.
Or you could just send some more money to Enron and those like Enron.
I'm pretty sure that I've heard of a few virii or worms going around that, among other things, blocked google. What an amazing coincidence... Anyways, here goes M$ with more anticompetitive behavior, maybe if we all get really pissed and make a big deal of it they'll get fined $500k. Nothing we can do about it. Oh well, shit happens, at least they're losing customers to apache. That's a start, all we need is to get linux more popular as an os for all those aol users out there
"73% of quotes on the Internet are made up" -Ben Franklin
What we are probably seeing is a beta of Microsoft' s search product, followed by backfill from Inktomi (this is why the search counts differ).
This only seems to happen on "popular" search queries, like open source (74 msn, 8,013,904 backfill, 11,700,000 google), and baseball (1974 msn, , 20,500,000 google), and linux (365 msn, 16,291,540 backfill, 92,000,000 google). "Unpopular" terms like wax museum just get backfill (151,414 msn backfill, 282,000 google). By only appearing on select popular terms it gives them a chance to test their product on search queries that an immature search product is likely to have results on (or maybe all search queries go through this new search first, and terms like wax museum just don't have any hits yet forcing the backfill to page one).
However, you assertion that the author has no idea how MSN Search works is probably spot on (both the submitter to Slashdot and the referenced author). Whatever Microsoft's feelings are about open source solutions, they're smart enough to know that surpressing information in the free portion of search is a PR disaster waiting to happen.
Results 1-15 of about 50 containing ""charles dickens""
Going to the next page gives 16-30 and so on.
It is only the patient searcher who will discover that after all 45 of the 50 hits are seen that there are 151383 results left to go.
So I agree, its not that MSN Search is biased against Linux. It is that MSN Search is biased toward those willing to spend money to be listed. And (as a direct effect of that) MSN Search is biased against those trying to find information.
They're not being dishonest for ideological reasons - they're just not interested in honesty or usefulness so much as they're interested in selling themselves. (I'll resist direct comparisons with the kind of prostitutes who are honest about what they're doing.) (OK, so my resistance crumbled.)
And of course, they'll never go broke underestimating the american public.
I'd wager a bet that most of us replying to this thread use the internet for research purposes daily. The fact that I just searched for linux on http://search.msn.com and came up with roughly 350+ hits shows that the owner of that search engine wants to limit my access to content on that topic. I think it's time for legislation involving search engines providing information on how they provide their results. Microsoft is obviously either blocking results that pertain to Linux or they need to state exactly how their search engine works if this is not the case.
google is quite honest:
:
:P.
Searched the web for linux windows. Results 1 - 10 of about 8,870,000.
search.msn page one says:
Results 1-15 of about 16 containing "linux windows"
page two says this
Results 16-30 of about 8898833 containing "linux windows"
They just want you to _think_ that their service is broken, so you won't use it for this purpose
Perhaps someone needs to explain how capitalism is supposed to work to the clueless Google management team. Looks like they still think that offering a better product/service translates into financial gain for the company.
Don't they know anything about changing a horizontal market into a vertical one, locking users in with Digital Restrictions Management, absolving all sense of responsibility with a EULA, and ensuring product obsolescence?
Amazing that these guys could even find funding with their cluelessness. Must've occurred during the irrational dot-com business-model era in the 90's.
search.msn doesnt give you an honest page count until you click "next page" for some searches
they have to. it's their only purpose, & yOUR only real purpose. ANY other greed/fear/ego based pretense, is totally false.
consult with/trust in yOUR creators.... prepare yourselves to see the light.
Gee, maybe it's a bug. Yeah, I know, Microsoft never suffers from bugs.
Anyone and everyone can see the "next" button at the top and bottom of the screen. Few people look at the "total number of hits" tally because 99.99% of the time there are lots of hits -- who cares anymore? That's a remnant of the days when web pages were scarce. This is totally a non-issue.
MSN results (yes, I read about sponsored links):
office - 5204
windows - 2373
server - 2121
money - 982
terrorism - 249
osama - 103
bill gates - 63
linus torvalds - 323738
Then you can go out and market OSS for 'us'.
.
You seem to misunderstand what i was saying. The average citizen reads and believes what he sees in the media, this includes places such as Google.
If all they see is one thing ( in this case, Microsoft ) then they will believe this is the only option. That is just human behavior.
While I agree we need to educate people ( and I do my part, do you? ) this does nothing for the *rest* of the world that doesn't get exposure except via the mass media, which 'teach your friend' doesn't qualify.. This is where things such as controlling search engine content come into play.. Or control of content on TV ( MSNBC as an example )
How do you propose to solve that, since you seem to think you know so much?
Calling them 'average consumer' isn't a insult, its f-ing reality.. Its how the mass consumer world works.. MOST people are 'average consumers'. And they could really care less about this.. all they care about is what they are spoon fed.. You should read up about basic marketing techniques before you spout off again..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I just tried those searches. MSN gave me 365 and google 97,000,000. Still an obvious discrepency though. I don't know why we're trusting inquirer for our technology news...
-Bl33d
Every windows user is a sadomasochist.
Strange. I certainly don't want to defend MSN search, but it seems to intentionally limit the response set for common words. Hence, low numbers of responses for "linux", "apache", and "windows". But if you search for "apache server", there's about 5 million responses on MSN search.
...Nothing interesting here. Just move along...
If you really wanted to make Google look inferior, you should have searched for "candle trucks" instead of just plain "trucks" :-)
As long as we're searching for communist...
on MSN
mom -- 315
apple pie -- 57
american flag -- 294
on google
mom -- 13,800,000
apple pie -- 2,050,000
american flag -- 3,490,000
Hmmm, it's interesting to look at the ratios...
mom/apple pie
msn 5.526
google 6.731
apple pie/american flag
msn 0.1938
google 0.587
american flag/mom
msn 0.933
google 0.2528
So if MSN were searching different subspaces (randomly) of the net they'd have the same ratios, but different numbers. Rather they are selecting "hits" differently.
But the important thing is that the ratios indicate a higher proportion of american flag hits on MSN as compared to mom and apple pie so even though google has more american flag links MSN is the more american engine.
On MSN, the first page displays sponsored results...you can see the real number of results on page 2. BTW, I'm a bit surprised most people's 1st criteria for a good search engine is the number of results.
____
nico
Nico-Live
MSN 20730
Google 45,000
I prefer a void in conversation to a vacuous one.
MSN's paid search hits ("featured sites") are clearly pro-Microsoft. It's less clear that the real search results are. MSN's search results aren't as useful as Google's, but that may just be inferior technology. MSN tends to return far more outdated pages.
How about windows?
MSN = 2,373
Google = 67,800,000
when I do that search on MSN I see 8897853 hits? Was this corrected my Microsoft that fast, or could this be shoddy journalism? Just a question...
+++++++
"Look, dear, it's a crazy hairy scary man!"
Do a search on msn.com for "linux vs. windows" (here) and you get 521343 hits.
Do the same on Google (here), you get 2,150,000 hits.
Now, if you want to conclude that MSN is an inferior search engine, I agree 100%. Saying or even implying that it gives bogus results tailored to support MS's whim is just a bold-faced lie.
Just because one search engine returns different results than another is in no way proof of a conspiracy on anyone's parts. It just highlights that the engines work in different ways and index different amounts and likely types of data.
If a pion (n-) collides with a proton in the woods & noone is there to hear it, does lamdba decay into the source pa
I decided to page through the whole 365 listed sites and see what happens when I get to the end. As I do so the number that MSN claims are available drops.
Example:
Results 1-15 of about 365 containing "linux"
Results 226-240 of about 253 containing "linux"
But the next page the results are quite different
Results 241-255 of about 16242034 containing "linux
So they have 16.24 million Linux results but you can't be told that until you get to the end of the list. Very strange.
if anybody would "crush/cannibalise/castrate" google, the next good==popular search engine is only but a few geeks and good ideas away. There are quite a number of contestants lined up and waiting and the barrier to entry for the search engine market is still very low. Google's main asset IMHO is its brand name.
So, I don't really get google's attractiveness to buyers. They're fine and dandy but still only a search engine with a good advertising business. The moment big companies (Yahoo, MSFT, whoever) make a real push into Google's market (aka. high quality search results with the combined cash revenue from adverts), and they will, I would like to see what inherent benefits Google can offer to those from the advertisers perspective.
Yeah, I think Google is excellent (and cool) too, but then I'm not an investor.
This really makes you wonder how valuable a news source Slashdot is. Long time readers know that stories are moderated to their front page status, but how much do readers understand that that is different than vetting the story for accuracy or truth? Indeed, there is no effort to correct the story in this case... usually 'Updates' are reserved for shutting up complaints about duplicate stories or pointing out updates to previously posted stories.
As for the Microsoft's reason for wanting to buy Google? I wonder if it has to do with being a good company? Being a solid competitor that Microsoft would rather acquire than compete head to head against? I think stories commenting on Microsoft's efforts to buy Google can be better informed by looking at Microsoft's efforts to acquire Intuit some years ago rather than some conspiracy theory hatched by a person that clearly doesn't leave their monitor lit, basement room nearly enough.
The number changes on every page too after a while.
Results 1-15 of about 365 containing "linux"
Results 76-90 of about 344 containing "linux"
Results 211-225 of about 262 containing "linux"
Results 226-240 of about 253 containing "linux"
Results 241-255 of about 16242034 containing "linux"
Results 1-15 of about 16 containing "linux windows"
Results 16-30 of about 8897867 containing "linux windows"
Results 31-45 of about 8897853 containing "linux windows"
I dont think this has anything to do with an ulterior motive by microsoft. I think its just a shoddy search engine made by them with their usual incompetence.
This post was spellchecked by google.
All misspellings and grammatical errors in the above post are intentional and part of my artistic expression.
Surely antitrust law is designed to stop monopolies becoming even stronger than they already are? Surely DOJ should be preventing Microsoft expanding its dominance?
Engineering is the art of compromise.
There recently was an article about msn search being biased and the conclusion was that it was totally wrong.
"This is exactly the reason all of us old-timers hate MicroSoft so much - this is a perfect example of the sort of thing they've been pulling for decades. Little things, individually, but annoying to folks that know better, but all carefully designed to create a 'network affect' to keep all the noobies from getting better, to keep them penned up in the little MS sandbox and paying the rent."
And this is different from other commercial websites, how? Especially since web advertising doesn't work. Are you mad at everyone else? Or just Microsoft, because it's Microsoft? What about other commercial software and their "network affect"? Does that make you mad? Or is it just Microsoft, because it's Microsoft?
Also, remember that the very same justification was used by King George in england to abuse the American colonies...because the King's pals [the "owners" of the settling corps] approved of the taxes and regulations Britian make that would never have seen the light of day in their own country! We've been there and done this...killed people over it! Now "freedom" is protection corperate oil profits...pretty sad...
I guess Google is going to use the cash from the IPO to buy microsoft:).
Doing a search for fuzzy hampster cock returns a full 166 results while the same on MSN returns only 64 and the first one points to Slashdot.
What is Gates up to?
Ecce Europa - Web Design for Business
After all you people tried to burn Microsoft in the fire, I just tried something different by searching MSN for other stuff:
"Windows 98" returned 110 hits
"Windows CE" returned 114 hits
"Windows 95" returned 134 hits
"Windows XP" returned 297 hits
"Windows 2000" returned 315 hits
"Windows ME" returned 2230 hits
This proves that MSN has a quite odd way to do the searchs, and frankly, they are f*****g up themselves too, not just Linux, and in conclusion MSN just isn't useful for looking up stuff in the net.
felipe at cantv dot net
It seems that microsoft has found that its own search technology is far inferior to that of google. Now the only way to compensate would be either to improve their own technology (laugh here) or to buy out google.
since google is still a private corporation, it would be hard for them to do that. But once google goes public-- it becomes fair game.
Try searching on "linux windows" "suse windows" and "redhat windows". For "linux windows" you get 16 results, as per the article. For "suse windows" you get almost a half million. For "redhat windows" you get almost the same. So, Microsoft must love SuSE?
Linux is more popular than Jesus.
Linux
Alta Vista 12,435,923
Google 96,900,000
msn 365
Yahoo 55,200,000
Dog Pile (Infospace) 102
Lycos 26,838,236
Excite 111
Alltheweb 17,082,765
Jesus
Alta Vista 6,377,521
Google 23,800,000
msn 432
Yahoo 15,900,000
Dog Pile (Infospace) 114
Lycos 34,032,913
Excite 107
Alltheweb 26,131,824
Interesting to note, a search of Infospace and Microsoft on Google comes up with 35,000 hits. Further reading indicates a large number of partnering going on.
Conspiracy or just bad search engines?
WARNING: WE HAVE NOT CONDUCTED A FELONY-CONVICTION SEARCH OR FBI SEARCH ON THIS INDIVIDUAL.
...from the mouse pointer will be the next great Microsoft innovation.
The patent application will be titled something like "A method of ensuring that correct information is given to customers while preventing superfluous data from confusing them."
If you search linux windows on MSN and enable stemming (which google does automatically) you will get around 5 million+ matches. The author is a complete biased moron!
Search for the word fuck..
You have entered a search term that is likely to return adult content.
Click here for search results on 'fuck' at NightSurf.com
NightSurf.com is an independent adult search service.
The question is do people REALLY use MSN to search?
This is yellow journalism at its finest.
/.
I know you meant "this" as in "this story" but it is also a generally fairly accurate description of
Somebody posts a tidbit of information and there is a rush on uninformed speculation and rumour mongering.
After following the MSN link, go down to the bottom of the page, hit next, (or click here if you're too lazy) then you'll see an updated number.
Results 16-30 of about 8897867 containing "linux windows"
That's right. Slashdot lies. And guess what, that's a bigger number than what google puts up.
__________________________________________
Take comfort in your ignorance.
Grandmaster Plague
How many of you search past the second page? Who can actually look up all 9 million searches for fucking lunix or msn anyway. It is overload in information anyway, that is the waste. It is like saying my car can go 300 miles an hour, and my Yugo cant, but guess what fucktards we will end up stopping on the same light stop and you are still going to be driving no more then 80 miles an hour on the freeway.
So more results doesnt give you quality. Numbers of results done by Google are meaningless outside "wooo look how much it gave me."
Quality of content not quantity of product that determines the higher value.
Yeah, MSN sucks dick and yadda yadda yadda but giving you 2-3 pages per search is much more reasonable then 1 billion hits.
Lets see, for 5 million sites, assuming it takes 5 seconds for you to click back and forth to check the site, you have 1million seconds, that is 277 hours dumbshits.
So go ahead have waste your time away, I rather have google come up with 2 pages with GOOD content then shit content. So when you compare number of hits doesnt equal quality, that is not to say MSN search can provide you content with few pages.
Idiots.
Google:
Searched the web for slashdot idiots. Results 1 - 10 of about 20,500. Search took 0.35 seconds.
MSN:
Results 1-15 of about 9125 containing "slashdot idiots"
Fuck you.
No. It proves that Microsoft fears those things, just like they fear Linux.
Uh-huh.
A Good Intro to NetBS
Microsoft doesn't want Google because they perceive them as a threat. They want Google because Google has what they see as the most important thing in the world - the front door to the Internet.
Microsoft knows that it while it may be impossible buy the protocols and standards that run the Internet, they can conceivably buy the de facto "gatekeeper".
Thing is, Google as is so popular, partly because of it's level of integrity as a company, not the other way around. It would be so easy for them to abuse this position if only for a while. Given Microsoft's track record, I think they would find the opportunities to abuse Google's position irresistable, which of course, would probably destroy Google's position as leader in fairly short order anyway.
Hey, I like Google, and I use it all the time. I liked Altavista and Lycos before it. And if Google got bought up and subverted, or if it became too beholding to commercial advertisers, I'd go to the next best competitor waiting in the wings to knock Google off.
... the real value of Google isn't in controlling what people see, it's in understanding what people are looking for. And that's what Microsoft was looking to purchase.
Besides, Microsoft isn't so stupid as to mess with a good thing
If you click on the next page link, it says:
Results 16-30 of about 8878057 containing "linux windows"
That's even 2 mil. more than google finds for me.
The site where: "I'm right, as long as you ignore the things that prove me wrong", became a valid method of debate.
Thank you editors, for yet another front page FUD-fest that under its surface, is pure garbage.
Go to page 2 of the MS search and let go of a little of your paranoia.
Microsoft's result counter is only 23 bits, so it's just overflowed and started again... Who in their right mind would ever need more than 8.3 million results anyway?
Curse you plastic mold maker!
Google only allows you to go 100 pages deep in your search result, so who cares what the number of returns is is in the hundreds of thousands, you're never gonna see those low-ranked returns anyway.
In fact, you shouldn't. What matters most is not how many returns you get for your search, but how good the first page of returns are at being what you had in mind. The object of the search game is for the #1 hit to be what you wanted and everything else not to matter.
MSN is the default page for IE and the default page for mis-typed URLs in IE. MSN must get hits in the hundreds of millions per day. Do you really want to suggest it's to Microsoft's credit that the front page has a bug of that magnitude? It's far kinder to call them dishonest.
I decided to check it out after you mentioned it. I ran a search for "fark" on it, in any language and content filtering off.
.com, I'm not sure. Now the next result confused the hell out of me: earthwire.net. Apparently that's is some sort of alternative domain for fark.com (just trying going there). Many more results were for fark.ru and fark personals. I didn't look past the second page for a fark.com link.
Alltheweb: 987,129 pages.
Google: 771,000 pages.
It looks like they hit the ground running, however let's look at the first 3 results of each.
Google: Fark.com (followed by a second page at fark.com), ScreamingMidget, and Fark Personals. The screamingmidget page was about fark cliches, and was pretty relevant.
Alltheweb.com: goatse.ecx. Yes I have the filter off, yet how the hell was this rated higher for fark than fark.com? Next: fark.ru. This took a very long time to load, but it does actually appear to be a russian fark page. Why this was given priority of the
I am very impressed with the number of pages it turned up (a couple hundred thousand more than google), but they don't seem to have a good scoring system.
A note: I turned on their offensive page filter, and goatse.cx remained the first result on the list.
Now that it has been disclosed that the original story was wrong (MSN returns more than 15 hits) lets ask if more is better. How many people look past the first million or so?
funny
Try this 'Apple' search. The results are, well, you'll see.
Never pet a burning dog.
linux trees: 80805
linux windows: 16
linux glass: 91926
linux doors: 82143
linux sucks: 132328
linux msn: 682655
linux mircosoft: 3880002
linux windoze: 28043
zipperhead windows: 192
trees windows: 497297
linux macintosh: 1567849
Much akin to the progress indicator for transferring this file has been saying 30seconds for more than an hour.
members are seeing something, your seeing an ad
I'd be interested to know if, in the interest of efficiency, or for other reasons, employees of Microsoft are allowed to use Google, rather than MSN at work. Or, is there another search mechanism/algorithm for the MSN knowledge corpus in use within Redmond that provides more Google-like results.
I can't believe that a good geek/techie can do a lot of his work without a decent search engine, and would Micorosoft be so stupid as to hobble their employees with an inferior search engine?
Anyone out there from the belly of the beast care to comment?
Call me old fashioned, but I like a dump to be as memorable as it is devastating - Bender
OK, suppose MSN changed the statistic out of pure evilness. SO WHAT? Virtually no one reads that statistic. In fact, search engines should only show that stat in advanced searches specifically because few people ever use it for any purpose. MSN still has 8 million hits for that search combination readable by anyone and everyone conducting the search. I hate Microsoft as much as the next guy, but you devalue the Linux argument by whining over something so trivial.
*Repeat after me*
Samba does not exist.
Samba does not exist.
Samba does not....
You can't attribute this to incompetence, I believe in this case it IS malice. Look at the following examples:
MSN Search
windows linux
Results 1-15 of about 25 containing "windows linux"
Results 16-30 of about 9039101 containing "windows linux"
Results 31-45 of about 8900293 containing "windows linux"
Results 46-60 of about 8900279 containing "windows linux"
Results 61-75 of about 8900266 containing "windows linux"
Why does the first page show only about 25 hits total?
linux windows
Results 1-15 of about 16 containing "linux windows"
Results 16-30 of about 8897867 containing "linux windows"
Results 31-45 of about 8897853 containing "linux windows"
Results 46-60 of about 8897839 containing "linux windows"
Results 61-75 of about 8897826 containing "linux windows"
Same here - first page shows only about 16 hits, but as you look at the next page, more show up.
Control group:
Slashdot
Results 1-15 of about 984256 containing "slashdot"
Results 16-30 of about 984255 containing "slashdot"
Results 31-45 of about 984240 containing "slashdot"
Kenneth Lay
Results 1-15 of about 99532 containing "Kenneth Lay"
Results 16-30 of about 99532 containing "Kenneth Lay"
Results 31-45 of about 99528 containing "Kenneth Lay"
In these, the large number of hits is shown on the first page.
linux
Results 1-15 of about 365 containing "linux"
Results 16-30 of about 365 containing "linux"
Results 31-45 of about 365 containing "linux"
Results 46-60 of about 365 containing "linux"
Results 61-75 of about 365 containing "linux"
Results 76-90 of about 344 containing "linux"
google
Results 1-15 of about 85 containing "google"
Results 16-30 of about 75 containing "google"
Results 31-45 of about 75 containing "google"
Results 46-60 of about 75 containing "google"
Results 61-75 of about 75 containing "google"
Results 76-90 of about 10346275 containing "google"
Results 91-105 of about 10346721 containing "google"
(www.google.com is at #76, but also at #1. #3 is msn)
The search for google on MSN is interesting - untill you get to #75, you don't see there are a lot more. Also, #76 happens to be www.google.com (it also shows up at #1 position. Why should MSN search show up when you are looking for google? MSN is not really a search engine, it is just another way promote the M$ empire and the expense of not providing people the real information.
On MSN, the first result is a Microsoft white paper.
In-Ex-Cus-Able.
Google's Deskbar beats the crap out of any MS search tools and makes them look not as innovative. Buy them before they put us to any more shame.
Flying Pigs on eBay
Find flying pig items at low prices. With over 5 million items for sale every day, you'll find all kinds of unique things on ebay - the world's online marketplace.
www.ebay.com
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
Ah yes, searching on google for xxx. We've all been there.
-- And when Justice is gone, there is always... Force. --Laurie Anderson, "Oh Superman"
Results 1-15 of about 126572 containing "microsoft sucks"
Results 1-15 of about 132328 containing "linux sucks"
It appears Linux sucks more (just marginally mind you) according to MSN.
Some like it Hotter Stuff
Linux and Mozilla customers get 5% off.
The search results are more important then how many hits are returned. What is important is the first 5 - 10.
Try searching on msn.com for 'apache linux' and notice how the first six are about the slapper worm.
Talk about biased search results...
What matters most is the first so many hits of search results returned.
look at the results for:
linux apache
The first 6 are about the slapper worm.
GOOGLE FIGHT!
Thanks John, here I thought you were dead! Linux and the Beatles are *BOTH* more popular than Jesus.
TT
Number of hits is irrelevant, what's relevant is the relevance of the hits!!
Example: Search MSN for "17th president america"
I dont see the 17th president of america listed.
Search on google, it's listed as the first hit
search on alltheweb, it's not listed
search on altavista, it's listed
Conclusion, Andrew Johnson was 17th president.
Who'd a thunk it? Microsoft agrees!
:)
Do a search for Linux on MSN search and take a look at the page title.
The "1 - 365" results are "Featured sites" and "Web Directory Sites";
Once you pass those pages, you have "Web Pages" (in light gray, after the last web-directory sites link) which has approximately 15 989 646 pages.
"I think its just a shoddy search engine made by them with their usual incompetence. "
They approximate, just like Google. They may be biases but the difference in numbers you mentionned isn't incompetent programming; they just chose to show the number of "featured sites" instead of all of the web pages.
And since the average windows/Msn user probably never looks beyond page 5, it's a good choice [IMO]
Al
Google:
* 6.2 million hits for Money shot
MSN:
* 1.7 hits for Money Shot
Google: The one stop porn search shop
My point? Who says I need one? I'm just here to report the facts.
<a href="http://www.joblessjimmy.com">Work is dumb and so is Jobless Jimmy.</a>
It would be a good choice if the "featured sites" weren't the paid ones. MSN not only shows you the paid listings first, they're intentionally making it difficult to see beyond them. Thats borderline unethical, imo.
maybe google just has more disk space.
I'm sure if microsoft could afford more disk arrays, and could get clusters of hundreds of thousands of machines actually playing nice together running windows, they would have a quality search engine.
The reason girls and Windows users don't understand UNIX is because all the documentation is in Man files.
I would think that having a search engine that was not tied into a corporate synergistic or advertising revenue model would serve a public good. I'd love to have the ability to search 'non-commercial' sites for information as well.
-_-
I have to say, it never even occurred to me that squashing competitor information might be a motive for Microsoft's attempted buy but it really does make sense. If Microsoft could gain control of the most popular search engine on the Internet, they could make it harder to research information of alternate operating systems, Windows security hacks or problems, or even webpages that are critical of Windows and MS.
Of course, if they had purchased Google, I would have promptly stopped using it.
Linux = 13,100,000
Microsoft = 10,100,000
I think it's more that MSN search itself sucks. Try just about ANY word and you'll get heaps less. Eg: type in Apple (note I don't say type in Apple Computer):
Google: 25 million plus matches
MSN: 1935 matches
Search for "bone"
Google: 10,400,000 matches
MSN: 643 matches
In summary, MSN search has been and always will be really lame unless they do the microsoft thing and eat the compettition with money. It's just really sad that so many Windoze users don't even think about all this when they go buy microsoft crap. Why are so many people so ignorant and stupid?
Dave
While they don't make it obvious, the first 16 are "web directory" sites:
These are probably analagous to the Yahoo!Directory or ODP results. If you go to the next page, you get:
Of course, the categories are in little grey text smaller than the search results themselves...
"Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself." -Richard Feynman
This is wrong. MSN estimates there are around 16 results. However, if you hit Next, it does a better estimate of over 8 million.
This is just a problem with the estimator. If you just search for "Windows", it estimates less than 3 thousand hits.
It would be a good choice if the "featured sites" weren't the paid ones. MSN not only shows you the paid listings first, they're intentionally making it difficult to see beyond them. Thats borderline unethical, imo.
I don't feel particularly strong about this, but I'm gonna bite anyway. Did you know that people pay to have ads placed in the yellow pages? Did you know that you can pay more to have your ad placed multiple times. You can even pay to have it placed in sections where it doesn't really make sense.
I suppose one could argue that we all know that money is paid for those ads. But microsoft categorizes their results. They are broken up into sections like "featured sites" and "sponsored sites", etc... and they give definitions for this.
So I don't see anything unethical about that.
Never attribute to incompetence what can be expalined by malice. MS has long and storied history of sleazy behavior. You really think MS engineers are that stupid and inept? There must be lots of MS employees here maybe then can speak up. Are you fellow co-workers really inept?
War is necrophilia.
I tried searching for 'freebsd' on both search.msn.com and www.google.com, and there was much less of a discrepancy. In fact, MSN pulled up twice as many pages (11 mil) on FreeBSD as did google (5 mil), and the official freebsd site was the number one result on MSN and was even marked as a top pick.
This makes the idea that MS is using their search engine (which could be argued is a public service, sort of) to compete against Linux even more credible. Of course, MS has every right to do so, but then, we have every right to point it out.
Don't become a regular here, you will become retarded. -- Yoda the Retard
Give up comparing the number of results by query! It's NOT ACCURATE. The MSN search is buggy, which should be apparent to anyone who hits the "NEXT >>" button a few times.
The number of results changes frequently (but not always), and you never reach the suggested limit. For example, "waffles" is only supposed to have 41 matches, but continues long past 100.
This is really a silly exercise and not a great measure of bias.
I'm not sure which is more pathetic: That a company would do that, or that M$'s credibility is so low that it wouldn't surprise anyone if they tried it?
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Um, Linux is Jesus, where have you been? You know, right? It saves us?
If MS bought google i'm guessing there would no longer be an http://www.google.com/linux
We can't find "127.0.0.1"
You can try again by typing the URL in the address bar above.
Or, search the Web:
Go to MSN Search to see complete results for "127.0.0.1".
____________________
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In the Swim - Replacement Hoses
Check availability or register the domain name '127.0.0.1'.
____________________
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Wow. Now that's a comprehensive search if I ever saw one.
Funny how only HALF of the search engines you used has Linux more popular than Jesus, yet you still say it anyway... :/
I don't know if this was mentioned already but while "Windows" only gets around 2,300 hits "Windows Sucks" gets around 211,000 hits.
I was going to compare this to the number of Mac vs Mac sucks hits, but I had to stop when I did the Mac sucks search and the first entry was "Why Microsoft sucks".
both, its a conspiracy to make bad search engine's
--The Titanic was built by proffesionals. --The Ark was built by Amatures.
Depending on where you live different data centers return different results. Over time the results are suppose to even out
It should even out over time within a given country, but from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, it doesn't. Many countries censor derivatives of works of long-dead authors. Other countries censor works that harshly criticize their governments.
Will I retire or break 10K?
[Google Adwords] are paid placements. So Google isn't lily white pure!
Those paid placements are clearly marked in a pastel color. The part of the result page with a lily white background is still lily white pure, no?
Will I retire or break 10K?
While it is true that typing "linux windows" on Google produces substantialy more results than it does on MSN, so does anything else. Try "peaches," this comes up with 1 million + for Google, vs. 164 for MSN. While I don't doubt that MSN gives biased results, this is simply not relavant proof.
These aren't marked as ads, and the "16" responses for paid listings aren't marked as such. It's extremely misleading.
I'm sure no one is surprised that Microsoft would want to do this. It's clearly in their own best interests.
However to go ahead and perform this extreme level of censorship, in a blatantly public form, is quite unbelievable.
After witnessing something like this, how could anyone trust Microsoft? Especially a group like the government of a country, etc. Is it any wonder that the government of China is concerned about what's contained in Windows?
Clearly a tin foil hat attitude towards Microsoft should be encouraged by this simple proof that even the most uneducated person should be able to understand.
1) Click Start /C echo 0.0.0.0 msn.com >> C:\WINNT\system32\drivers\etc\hosts"
2) Click Run...
3) type "cmd
Have a nice day!
(For fun, you could even replace 0.0.0.0 with Google's ip address)
Results 16-30 of about 8661564 containing "linux windows"
I think Microsoft really just wanted to buy Google because Microsoft's own search engine can't count very well. It would be cheaper for MS to invest in someone elses technology to implement this feature than to try to wrangle their own exotic technology to return "number of results found." Or so I speculate...
When adding the word 'difference' to the search (msn, google) gives some nice results:
MSN
1)CNN.com - Technology - What's the difference between Windows and Linux? - March 3, 2000
2)Linux.com
3)Web Ad Blocking Under Linux/Unix, BeOS, MacOS and Windows
5)How to Replace Windows NT with Linux
Google
1)The Great Linux-Windows NT Debate - Making_Linux_NT-Like
2)Qt-interest Archive - difference pathname linux-windows
3)Linux vs. Windows: Choice vs. Usability
and more alike
Thus maybe MSN is only 'biased' with very 'simple' searches. On the other hand, I can't understand the signifigance of nr. 2 at the google search
MSN only has 12 hits for "homoerotic regurgitation", but Google has 28. Maybe they want to buy Google to supress homoerotic regugiphiles, rather than Linux?
how is *this* for bias? on msn.com, i search for:
"window security" (nah, thats not a popular web topic, is it?) -- 29 matches. then, "windows satisfied" -- 280,021 matches!! haha
concerned that i might be actually addressing the panes-of-glass industry, i did the same with the word microsoft substituted for windows. results? "microsoft security" -- 22 matches (HA!); "microsoft satisfied" -- 148,930. (i suspect this last number is *maybe* the number of actual satisfied windoze users.)
You can look at the most cited papers, or the most accessed papers on cite-seer for a good list of classics: http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/access.html
Looks like everyone's missing the point here. What Microsoft does with their own search engine is their own business.
However, they have been trying to pressure Google into selling. Then it becomes a concern because currently Google is the only decent search engine available. Do you honestly believe MS would buy google and keep it unchanged? They're more interested in simply eliminating competition and getting a couple of good patents than actually running the best search engine in the world.
If they were just interested in running a decent search engine, they wouldn't have to buy Google. They could write one. The key is that they don't want a good search engine, they want a good marketing device.
When they leverage their backbone to try to muscle out the competition, that is when it becomes a problem for everyone.
-- If it ain't broke - overclock it more.
yes, I am afraid so.
Oh, and my apologies for the Out-Of-Band packet of death, winuke thing. That was my bad.
Webcrawler- 116 hits for "porn", but only 36 for "nuclear fusion".
I sense a pro-pornography, anti-nuclear bias in Webcrawler!
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
If the author had bothered to click 'next' Results 16-30 of about 8897489 containing "linux windows" DOH!
Java has 376 hits. And Java does have some other meanings. Borneo has 210961 hits. And 1845 of those hits for "Borneo Python". So that brings us to another language. Python has 36 hits, and some of those are for Monty and the snakes! However, "Guido van Rossum" gets 9868 hits. The first 45 hits are all about the benevolent dictator of Python (I got bored after that, its probably a lot more) .. I wonder what he was talking about, must not have been his language.
This is fun ... we can now quantify how badly Bill hates you - The Google/MSN Ratio (GRM)
Technology Google MSN GMR
Python 9.9M 36 275000
Java 53.7M 376 142819
OpenBSD 3.5M 251143 13 (sob)
NetBSD 4.76M 191501 25
Linux 97M 365 265753
---------------
So for now, Python still has a higer GMR ratio than Linux.
Think global, act loco
The maximum number of hits a particular search can sustain is between 5 and 100.
:) So there's some really smart AI there.
This was a great surprise to the engineers building search engines -- the original problem was, how do we find particular keywords across hundreds of millions of documents? This was solved relatively trivially -- index by keyword, and distribute the search space across the memory of many, many machines. All of the sudden, it became apparent that search had much less to do with how much you could search and much more to do with which results came up first.
That's a much harder problem -- fundamentally, without the user telling you what he wants, how can you figure out what he's most likely to desire? This actually uses artificial intelligence techniques, much to the consternation of the eternally discredited AI folk who point out that "the moment AI becomes useful, it ceases to be called AI" (which is true). It's AI because you effectively need to programmatically derive what an intelligent surfer is most interested in, as an abstract subject instead of a concrete phrase. Google gets alot of credit for their Pagerank algorithm, which uses links from other sites to weigh which links are more "authoritative" than others, but interestingly enough their system is noticably robust even without outside links. Corporate websites all tend to run 1998-era search engines -- all quantity, no quality (and in this case, quantity has no quality all its own). Some time ago, I worked at a massive company that was testing Google for internal searches. Corporate web pages are far less cross-linked than the web itself. But Google-internal worked just like...well, Google
Anyway, as I've said before, MS can't buy Google; they'd just create the market segment of "what Google used to be". Speaking as someone who has a healthy respect for MS as a company, they've simply burned through too much goodwill for people to trust their search results as authoritative. Yes, mysql only gets a few hits on MSN search. So does pancakes, and I doubt MS is part of the great Waffle Iron Conspiracy.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
Google would be a great deal if Microsoft could purchase it. Look at all that white space on the main search page. Just think how many Microsoft ads could fill that space. It would be better ad space the MSN messenger is. .net technology to the pages and Google would only work with a Windows PC running IE.
With googles technology MS could weed out redundant and taboo topics like Linux, UNIX, Mac, Opera, Quicken and the like. Add MS
Of course right now Google is designed to be quick loading, simple and efficient which pretty much goes against Microsoft software guidelines. Then again it might be better if Google had a search wizard and a paper clip avatar showing you how to search the net.
I know you meant "this" as in "this story" but it is also a generally fairly accurate description of /.
/.
Somebody posts a tidbit of information and there is a rush on uninformed speculation and rumour mongering.
Self esteem boost for the lazy.
Some people do stuff, but most just bitch about the people who do stuff. Slashdot started as a site for the people who do stuff, but realized that catering to the other crowd is much more lucrative. Toss in those flamebait articles and the second crowd salivates. The clickity-click and the empty posts begin: "Microsoft is so stupid. When will the giant see that they are about to fall. Sigh".
Clickity-click = $$$ for
Sorry to burst everyone's bubble, but you guys are getting EVERYTHING wrong. What MSN's search engine is doing, is listing the "WEB DIRECTORY" sites first. If you guys did a little better research, you would notice that it says "WEB DIRECTORY SITES" Right underneath the results. When you go to the next page, it then proceeds to say "WEB PAGES" which means the rest of the internet. MSN has it so that their featured, sponsored, etc sites are on the top, then the 'rest' of the internet is on the WEB PAGES section. God. Over 90% of you people are COMPLETELY clueless as to what you're talking about. Only 41 web pages on waffles?? NO! 41 SPONSERED websites on waffles. It goes on from there. Slashdot, PLEASE do research before posting your articles. It's very VERY embarrassing... especially when you are trying to "bash" Microsoft. Sure, Microsoft should have it in BOLD or something, but they are CLEARLY not saying that those pages are the ONLY ONES they can find on the internet. That's my two cents.
Much akin to the progress indicator for transferring this file has been saying 30seconds for more than an hour.
Hey, give them some credit where credit is due. They have made some tremendous speed boosts when it comes to progress bars. That first 99% goes by in only 1% of the time. You can't get that kind of performance under Linux.
Virtually no one reads that statistic.
Please supply a reference supporting this claim.
Here are the results for different OSes:
OS: Google vs. MSN
aix: 3,550,000 vs. 40
solaris: 8,340,000 vs. 87
tru64: 676,000 vs. 93,433
hp-ux: 1,890,000 vs. 287,294
ms windows: 6,650,000 vs. 291
vms: 1,770,000 vs. 22
os2: 702,000 vs. 118,273
linux: 96,800,000 vs. 365
freebsd: 8,810,000 vs. 1,136,552
openbsd: 3,500,000 vs. 341,343
netbsd: 4,750,000 vs. 223,075
unix: 23,700,000 vs. 164
symbian: 1,400,000 vs. 420,701
"windows 2000": 6,750,000 vs. 315
"windows xp": 970,000 vs. 297
"windows server 2003": 4,170,000 vs. 30
MSN:
...of about 101,000,000
;^)
2373 containing "windows"
Google:
I disrespect MS for hating Windows. I disrespect Google liking Windows. Talk about irony! I also feel kind of backstabbed by Google.
Take care...
I suppose one could argue that we all know that money is paid for those ads. But microsoft categorizes their results. They are broken up into sections like "featured sites" and "sponsored sites", etc... and they give definitions for this.
I'm going to have to call bullshit here. I never noticed the little "Featured sites" and "Web directory sites" headings until they were pointed out in a comment I just read. They're the same size and the same color as the URLs listed for each entry, and blend in to the point where they're almost unnoticeable. Further, not all sites withing "Web directory sites" are paid, which makes it even more difficult to find real results (yes I realize MS claims they don't prioritize the paid sites within that category, but should I trust them?). Now granted, I don't use MSN 99% of the time, but sponsored links should stand out instantly in my opinion.
Interestingly, an MSN search for the term " FreeBSD Windows returns more than half a million hits. In other words, Microsoft is filtering searches for Linux and not FreeBSD. (Perhaps this is because the BSDs haven't declared war on all commercial software vendors, including Microsoft?)
But if you search for "X11" on MSN, you get 5000000 hits. Kinda blows the hell out of your "smalller index" theory, huh?
Results 1-15 of about 1121589 containing "linux kernel"
Its more specific, while 'linux' is toooo general, what the hell do you want? to buy it, support it, download it, ASK idiot.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
google is seriously cool. Everyone I've talked to at Microsoft has been telling me that they've wanted to buy it for a while.
Please provide evidence that anyone (besides linux nerds who take cheap shots at M$ because of their bruised egos) is interested in such arcane statistics.
about 2202403 containing "linux features"
about 829257 containing "linux bugs"
about 3119922 containing "microsoft features"
about 20 containing "microsoft bugs"
No *wonder* Gates thinks M$ software is bug free!
He uses MSN!!!
Are you questioning whether Microsoft can afford something? That they are jealous of Google's ability to buy disk drives?
MS wanted to buy Google, because to a large degree, the search engine (Google's natural language command line shell) is the way people interact with the OS, so it becomes the OS, in large part.
See this eweek article for more on this idea.
The difference is that, in the yellow pages, people are looking to spend their money. In search engines, this may or may not be the case. If I'm looking for information on how to fix my computer, I [personally] do not first want to see a bunch of ads about buying a new computer.
Not that I would want Microsoft to buy Google anyway, but it's false to claim that MSN is eliminating Linux results. They just have a crappy search engine that it is obviously tuned to return stuff to convert people to MS.
BTW, a lot of search engines return incorrect results for the count on the first page that, I suspect, occur because of optimizations to return results as fast as possible. To actually definitively answer the exact number of matches for any given search when there are a large number of documents is likely a fairly complex task that doesn't add truly to the value of the results returned anyway. This is probably the reason search engine results always say "...about X number of pages".
one step forward for m$, one huge freakin step for what was a good search engine.
uidzer0.org
Interesting?
The Harry Fletcher article claims 14 million hits on "linux windows". Taco's summary (a week later) claims 9 million. I just tried and got 5.97 million. Is Goooogle trying to reduce the number of hits to match MS?
That if Microsoft simply coded IE to redirect all queries to http://www.google.com to it's own site, not much could be done about it. The federal government couldn't enforce anything against them and basically sent the message that they could do anything they wanted.
Or try searching for 'Microsoft' on MSN. That only returns ~3600 hits compared to 67 million on Google.
What do we conclude from this? There isn't much of a conspiracy at all. MSN is just a shoddy search engine. Perhaps they know that and buying Google would allow them to take MSN out and shoot it (like it deserves).
Typical Slashdot lies and distortion!
= SM CRT
I got 365 hits. (:
http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=linux&FORM
Here's an interesting one... try searching for 'Linux' on msn. 300 odd hits, right? Now try searching for 'Linux sucks'... Whoa....!
The Enquirer completely missed the real story. Try searching on more specific terms:
:)
google.com.au:
'Microsoft Windows' ~= 7,560,000
'Debian Linux' ~= 3,900,000
search.msn.com:
'Debian Linux' ~= 793,659
'Microsoft Windows' ~= 713 (!)
This demonstrates the opposite of the kind of bias The Enquirer was alleging...
Is Microsoft limiting Windows search results to only 'approved pages'? How can there be only 700 pages dealing with Microsoft Windows? Unless they're truly *ridiculously* incompetent, which I don't buy. Or unless they are losing some serious market share to Debian!
Now there's a happy thought.
Reading the above and looking at some of the searches I was leaning towards thinking that the search results were just bad, NOT intentionally misrepresented. But then I did an MSN search for "internet search" and "search engine" and in both cases had to go through to the 3rd or 4th page before I got a link to google. That was well past the "featured sites" list. But at least google made it to the top of the list when I searched "google"! I guess they decided they could only hide so much...
Go to MSN and do a search on "bill gates sucks cock" with the quotation marks. Google provides five hits. MSN only provides three:
:: K12 Open Source in Schools
1. K12OS
2. Slashdot | IP Theft in the Linux Kernel
3. Microsoft Corporation
Note that:
a) Linux is more popular than Jesus in the most widely used search engine (Google, Yahoo, Altavista)
b) The margin is much larger when Linux beats Jesus than when the opposite happens
And the results in:
Results 1-15 of about 916195 containing "FreeBSD"
Results 1-15 of about 251143 containing "OpenBSD"
Results 1-15 of about 190918 containing "NetBSD"
Results 1-15 of about 2373 containing "Windows"
Results 1-15 of about 365 containing "Linux"
According to MSN: All BSDs are clear winners in this competition. FreeBSD is supreme leader, way ahead of both Windows and Linux. What did netcraft have to say about this.......?
One other interesting fact, that no one seems to have mentioned - the search seems to be somewhat case sensitive - check out the different results:
Results 1-15 of about 916195 containing "FreeBSD"
Results 1-15 of about 1129745 containing "freebsd"
Saying your OS is the best because more people use it is like saying MacDonalds make the best food
I don't believe it was their plan to cut the search results on google.com. I typed "Windows" into msn and google search, and here are the results:
MSN Results 1-15 of about 2373 containing "windows"
GOOGLE Results 1 - 10 of about 13,300,000. Search took 0.24 seconds.
From this I can only guess that it's their search engine and how they get their results that sucks. And they want google to learn (Not sure, but I think it is public anyway) how to be better. Or something like that.
CHEERS
--RoadkillBunny
Cheers,
RoadkillBunny
MS Might only Index IIS Servers :)
Who needs WiFi when we can have Packet Over Sheep! http://datacomm.org/PoS-InternetDraft.txt
That's still 15 too many search results to qualify.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
There's even worse: Make a search for google on msn, you get search.msn.com in the 3rd position!
google by MSN
I think they are so dumb that they will be out of business in 10/15 years, in dispite of their billions.
...unless you really believe 8,898,833 pages is "about 16."
Clearly, you seem to forget that 16 = 8,898,833 for Extremely Large Values of 16.
I also just noticed that the number MSN gives is misleading. I searched for Leonid Meteor Shower on MSN and it said 35 results, but when I got past 35 it says 10566 results. A Flyer made last year made result number 159 - Leonid Meteor Shower: MeteorStorm! ;(
http://www.starryskies.com/leonids is listed as result 229.
Google yields 33,900 results, and our page is number 25.
http://starryskies.com/The_sky/events/meteors/
Yahoo found 22,300 and our page is number 9 there.
Given our problems trying to get some of our better pages listed on Yahoo's directory, they want $300 per submission now, I was a bit surprised to see we are listed there and did well in this search ranking.
Anyone have any tips on a better way to determine search engine ranking?
We never have bothered with these search engine submission services, they just seemed like a rip off.
Chuck
Comment removed based on user account deletion
xxx -membership -"join now" -visa -mastercard
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
This would fall in line with the security-as-PR campaign. MS has been fighting to prevent further discussion or disclosure of problems in order to prevent all-out panic from end users as it goes over to monthly patching. Since there have been several indications that it wishes to show a short turn around time, the easiest way is to delay the announcement of the bug / hole/ flaw. Since the present is under attack, it would only make sense to revise the past.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Modded as flamebait, huh? Some Linux zealot's a bit uneasy with views and facts that counter their own I see.
I'm not exactly shocked.
Now THAT'S flamebait!
If a pion (n-) collides with a proton in the woods & noone is there to hear it, does lamdba decay into the source pa
Now, I am a linux fan and anti-microsoft, but please get your article to compare apples with apples and not apples with oranges...
The two search engines treat the search string windows linux completely differently.
For MSN, try "windows or linux" (without quotes) and you will get your near 8 million...
Karem
When all is said and done, nothing changes...
That is why they say "about", it's to cover their ass.
-SIGSEGV
i wonder if the definition of paid includes deals they made to stop other companies fromn useing alternative software. something like an extender to the discouts given for not using linux..
theroreticaly this would be a paid ad but not nessecarily count as one
Windows Linux OS returns MANY more searches. I thought it might be automatically doing phrase searces, so I tested linux kernal. Thousands of hits. Then I thought it might be just certain phrases and tested Windows Explorer and Windows Explorer Program. It jumped from 21 to 692373 sites. It looks as though does some odd filtering on some requests, unless you break it by adding an additional word.
for just the word linux came up with only 443 results. I am sure this is just a coincidence and has nothing to do with a bias or anything.
ZERO ZERO ONE ZERO ONE ZERO ONE ONE! Just brushing up for my next big invention: Ethernet over Voice (EoV)
The flamebait mod was metamodded "unfair".
In Soviet America the banks rob you!