Microsoft To Launch Homegrown Search Engine

Mr. Christmas Lights writes "While Google is currently the king-of-the-hill in search engines, Microsoft continues to lag in market share and uses Yahoo's technology/results. But Cnet reports that they'll launch on Thursday their own homegrown search engine , although it appears this is mostly a face-lift (despite a year of development and $100 million investment). According to Bill Gates, they 'will introduce a homegrown web crawler and algorithmic search engine ... later this year,' which is almost certainly their tech preview (you can look at this now) -- but will that be ready for prime-time in less than two months?"

Comments

About time

[lightdarkness]

I've seen their cralwer (their new one I presume) around for at least a month, without any indication on where the results were being shown. At least I have another spider to add to my list of robots that steal my bandwidth.

Re:About time

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people want the web crawlers from the search engines visiting their web site. It's how their web sites get indexed and listed. If you want to talk about something that sucks bandwidth, get listed on slashdot. No web crawlers needed there.

Re:About time

[b374]

Is this their crawler?

Re:About time

[AndroidCat]

Are you sure that it's not their security department? How else would they know that I need all those security updates that they keep sending me?

Re:About time

[FireFury03]

The msnbot has been around for many months. I have seen many complaints about the amount of bandwidth it uses and I know many web masters (me included) have blocked it's access because of this so I dunno how useful the search results will be. I've seen reports of it sucking gigabytes off a site in a day, and then doing exactly the same again the next day, which is really quite serious for those people who have a reasonably small bandwidth limit on their web space.

For me it was sucking several gig a month off my site, and was obviously very badly coded since it was refetching the same pages over and over (cachable pages, non-cachable pages and 404's). So in the end I gave up and outright blocked the damned thing - yet another bit of shoddy MS code out to break the internet.. :(

Re:About time

[16K Ram Pack]

How did you explicitly do that? Block at firewall level?

Re:About time

[AndroidCat]

Blocked it with what? Is it playing nice with robots.txt and meta-tags, or did you have to get rough?

Re:About time

[FireFury03]

Amazingly, there is some standards compliance and it pays attention to robots.txt directives.

Re:About time

[FireFury03]

It pays attention to robots.txt directives (finally, a small amount of standards compliance!)

Re:About time

[Anonymous Coward]

We hope it is being nice with robots.txt
If it turns out not to make sure to sue them for stealing copyrighted information. Maybe a good idea for my "legal blah blah" page.. I could explicitly forbid their engine from retrieving and/or storing any information from my site... Or perhaps a nice little word at the bottom of the frontpage "this site is optimalized fro indexing with Google.com"

Re:About time

[AndroidCat]

It looks like it checks for meta tags too. (Useful when /robots.txt isn't convienent.) MSNBot page and other info. Also note that it only checks /robots.txt once a day, so policy changes might not take effect right away.

Re:About time

[flithm]

Actually it says it pays attention to robots.txt, however my test results show that it does not behave as expected. After noting the amount of bandwidth it was consuming, I created a robots.txt based from the examples on their web site, since I noticed it wasn't following the rules I had already specified that other crawlers obey nicely.

Unconvinced... here's some stats from my logs:

MSNBot hits: 10217+77 bandwidth: 441.67 MB
Googlebot hits: 116+90 bandwidth: 16.13 MB

This is after the modifications of the robots.txt file, and this is only for a 2 week period in October. MSN bot was drawing nearly 1 gigaBYTE of upstream per month, just from my lowly site! No thank you... I prompty did this:

iptables -A INPUT -p all -s 65.54.0.0/16 -j DROP

I encourage all other webmasters to do the same.

Re:About time

[FireFury03]

It payed attention for me with:

User-agent: msnbot
Disallow: /

iptables -A INPUT -p all -s 65.54.0.0/16 -j DROP

Or even better, if you have the TARPIT module:
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -s 65.54.0.0/16 -j TARPIT :)

Re:About time

[Mr Z]

Microsoft's spider hit me awhile back, computing all sorts of amusing math on this old CGI I wrote waaaaaay back when I was in college. Damn spider transfered nearly 60MB of HTML out of that CGI before it got bored and moved on.

I ended up explicitly adding it to my robots.txt file.

--Joe

Re:About time

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the User-agent for MS's robot?

Re:About time

[flithm]

Nice. That is better! I had no idea TARPIT existed previously. Thanks.

As for the robots.txt. I looked at mine and had specified user-agent as MSNBot. Perhaps the case makes a difference? Either way... I think TARPIT is the best solution :)

Re:About time

[Ohreally_factor]

No, I think this is. Note how it effectively digs out that juicy "meta data". You might think that a search based on mucus is funny, but it'snot.

Re:About time

[Anonymous Coward]

blocked it's access

"its".

So

[jbartone]

Who's actually going to use this instead of Google?

Re:So

[MoonFog]

Since it'll probably end up being default start-up page in IE, lots.

Re:So

[Draveed]

You would be amazed. This week I discovered someone in my office who knew nothing about google.

Re:So

[iezhy]

somebody will, i guess

anyway, Google and this new MSN search give quite different set of results (at least in first page) for my favorite keyword "boo".

and i wonder why is ti using the same color scheme as Google does? :-)

Re:So

[zakezuke]

Since it'll probably end up being default start-up page in IE, lots.

Fortunately IE has enough in the way of exploits so the default start-up page gets hijacked often enough.

Re:So

[Anonymous Coward]

... and everytime there's a messenger update, the "would you like to set your homepage" with the yes option ticked.

Re:So

[Technician]

Since it'll probably end up being default start-up page in IE, lots.

You mean the same people who use the default favorites? I looked at the default list once, then deleted it. It looked like a paid list from the yellow pages of the travel and media sections in the phone book.

Re:So

[zeptic]

That's probably why Google has aggreed to making Firefox' startpage defaults to google.com.

Re:So

[Titusdot Groan]

Did your company fire them?

I've got a running gag with my team that if I can find the answer to their problem in 3 google searches I get their pay for that week. The number of dumb question I get is WAY down.

Re:So

[Eriky]

As far as I can see, the search engine works very well. But it doesn't have any added value at this moment (compared to google). At least Yahoo has some extra's like personal search, but those are minor features which are not enough to make google users switch. The strenght of Microsoft is it dominition on the desktop. If they want to integrate their searchengine into windows, many people will use it.

Re:So

[Anonymous Coward]

Well if everyone uses Firefox then they will default to google.

Re:So

[Humpinate]

Well.... The real question isn't who will use it, but who will use it WITHOUT ACTUALLY LOADING IT.......Let's see, a "browser" that connects for you, filters your input and "protects" you by censoring and "digitally checking" your music and images for copyright infringement. Then to be "safe" prevents you from "searching" for those nasty warez sites, and MP3 sites and cracker/hacker
sites.......The list goes on. Big Brother needs to STAY THE FUCK OUT OF MY BOXEN !!!!!

Re:So

[Anonymous Coward]

Everytime I start Firefox it goes to the default page, I'm just to lazy to change it. I guess in the time it took me to post this I could have changed it, but thats to late now.

On a side note, I remember hearing a joke one time that if your VCR clock is flashing 12:00 you probably shouldn't be a programming, and I thought, shit now they tell me.

Re:So

[Anonymous Coward]

Me for one. Ever since Google shifted focus from their core business of searching their results have gotten worse and worse. What used to come up on the front page of results is now buried somewhere around page 3. What precedes it is results gleaned from blogs and shopping sites. Google is an absolute mess. I tried searching for my old high school and I finally got frustrated after having to enter more and more search terms to try and get a hit. I eventually found it with Clusty within 3 clicks. FUCK GOOGLE! They just don't care anymore. They're only at 50% of the SE market anyway. You nerds seem to think they're hovering at 99%. Please.

Re:So

[Jabberu]

I'ts clear we need a new moderation, "horrifying" is missing.

Re:So

[loconet]

They should interviewed in National Geographic or something..

Re:So

[jimicus]

This week I discovered someone in my office who knew nothing about google.

What's google?

Re:So

[TheMediaWrangler]

This guy. *snigger*

Boy, they could have picked a better photo.

Re:So

[Anonymous Coward]

He's moved on to the infamous step 3.

PROFIT!

congrats, I'd mod you, but I don't have any mod points.

Seriously, who doesn't use google to search for a microsoft error message instead of microsoft's knowledgebase search.

And, what does everybody think about them being able to retrieve hits at pay for registration sites like experts-exchange?

Re:So

[Spoing]

1. I've got a running gag with my team that if I can find the answer to their problem in 3 google searches I get their pay for that week. The number of dumb question I get is WAY down.

Smart. Back when I worked as a Tech Support manager (pre-WWW, post 'net), the techs would constantly come to me with the same questions... I'd fire back to them "did you find anything in IZE?" (a simple but useful outline database back then). If they said no, I'd look...and about 1/3 of the time found the answer there.

The only difference between then and now is that it used to be that if the search came up empty, I would tell them to write up a note on what they learn so that the next person searching would find something. Now, with Google, that is rarely necessary.

Re:So

[DavidD_CA]

Once again, you (and me, and everyone on /.) represent 1% of 1% of the rest of the world.

Every computer I've ever seen has all your default favorites still there.

Just like the default Quick Launch (that damned Desktop link, Outlook Express, etc).

Just like every program known to man each in their own Start Menu folder.

Just like the dozen Tray icons that install themselves which you and I always remove or hide (Quick Time, Real, AV, Security Center, etc).

Re:So

[rodrigo_braz]

Google is somehow old technology by now and there should be ways to improve upon it, especially with loads of cash. Maybe they are doing something interesting. I tried my name in it and in fact got better results than in Google.

Re:So

[Anonymous Coward]

has some extra's

"extras".

Last Post...

[Anonymous Coward]

... for Google?

Re:Last Post...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, I searched for a statement by Netcraft, but Google didn't find anything.

Search for Windows.....

[alistair]

No Results Found

Needs some fine tuning before it's ready for the prime time, me thinks.

Re:Search for Windows.....

[aussie_a]

Mod this funny, mod this flame-bait, mod this troll. But don't mod this Interesting. It's completely false.

Re:Search for Windows.....

[jai0]

Just searched for "where do you want to go today".. the first result was "Where do you want to go birding in Africa today?"!

Re:Search for Windows.....

[Anonymous Coward]

With the technology preview version you can search for naughty bits like "fuck me" that are disallowed on the "homegrown" search engine. Strangely, you can search for "fuck me harder" on both. This research funded in part by the Bolivian Coffee Grower's Association and your local dairy mart.

Re:Search for Windows.....

[Anonymous Coward]

What? Works great. Just searched for "Windows Security", and the fourth hit reads "Why Windows is a Security Nightmare."

Re:Search for Windows.....

[bleckywelcky]

And they might want to fix this: (from Netcraft)

OS, Web Server and Hosting History for search.msn.com
http://search.msn.com was running Microsoft-IIS on Linux when last queried at 3-Nov-2004 17:10:15 GMT
OS Server Last changed IP address Netblock Owner
Linux Microsoft-IIS/5.0 2-Nov-2004 193.108.93.132 Akamai
Linux Microsoft-IIS/5.0 30-Oct-2004 212.23.32.6 Akamai
Linux Microsoft-IIS/5.0 29-Oct-2004 81.52.205.38 Akamai Technologies
Linux Microsoft-IIS/5.0 28-Oct-2004 193.108.93.139 Akamai
Linux Microsoft-IIS/5.0 27-Oct-2004 212.23.37.7 Akamai
Linux Microsoft-IIS/5.0 26-Oct-2004 212.187.244.14 Akamai
Linux Microsoft-IIS/5.0 25-Oct-2004 193.45.1.112 Akamai
Linux Microsoft-IIS/5.0 24-Oct-2004 212.23.32.14 Akamai
Linux Microsoft-IIS/5.0 23-Oct-2004 212.23.32.15 Akamai
Linux Microsoft-IIS/5.0 22-Oct-2004 212.23.32.8 Akamai

Re:Search for Windows.....

[itzfritz]

yeah and this search: http://techpreview.search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=% 22bill+gates+is+a+nazi%22 actually gives results....

Re:Search for Windows.....

[Carnildo]

For that matter, searching for "paris hilton" brings up a bunch of sites claiming to have the sex video, as expected. Searching for "paris hilton hotel" also brings up sites with the sex video, and nothing about Hilton hotels in Paris -- unlike Google, where the same search brings up a page full of useful links, with www.hilton-paris.com as the first hit.

Re:Search for Windows.....

[cayce]

If you search for "Hilton Paris" (which is what you would easily type if you mean the Hilton in Paris) your first result will be www.hilton-paris.com, you type in "Paris Hilton" the search engine would go for any page that contains those words in the exact order (therefore the hilton hotels don't come at first). Looks like the engine will always look for your phrase as you type it in first, then combination of the words.

Sometimes I just wish I had some (-1 stupid) mod points.

Microsoft's problem

[ArbiterOne]

Microsoft is branching out too much. Without ripping off Google, I don't really see how they can pull this off. In order to reverse the current trend in market share, they'd have to have a better algorithm than Google, a massive ad campaign, and the popular opinion on their side. Oh, and start giving things away for free (Google: Blogger, Picasa, etc.)

Re:Microsoft's problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Shhhh. Microsoft blowing 100s of millions of dollars that will gain them nothing is exactly what is required.

The more targets they have to aim at, the more it will drain them.

Re:Microsoft's problem

[KiloByte]

... or ignore quality and just put it as the default (and only) search engine for a certain well-known OS...

Re:Microsoft's problem

[geg81]

It's not a "rip off" when multiple companies offer similar products, it is competition. Competition is a good thing: it lowers prices and improves products. And while Google has some good technology, they company didn't come into being in a vacuum and they don't own the idea of citation and reference analysis, either legally or scientifically.

"Lower what prices?" you might ask. Well, Google isn't a charity. I expect Microsoft will compete with them on advertising rates and whereever else Google makes money.

The only thing that may be considered unfair about that is that Microsoft can afford to make losses for many years on this before driving Google out of business. But that's a problem everybody faces when Microsoft enters a new market.

Re:Microsoft's problem

[Evil Pete]

What's more, with previous forays into new fields MS had the advantage that the user didn't have to download or buy/install a large application etc. But google can just be your homepage ... where is MS' advantage ?

I'd be surprised if it is a success simply because MS cannot deliver a clear reason to the user to use it.

Re:Microsoft's problem

[Anonymous Coward]

The answer to the question "how does Microsoft intend to destroy Goggle" has been well known for a while. They will use the same old anti competitive tactic they used for Netscape and imbed the search capability direct into Windows probably via Windows Explorer. By upping the convenience, they think, the fact that the search is inferior probably doesn't matter much. It worked very well for IE, Office and the Windows platform itself. It hasn't worked so well for them recently with neither the Xbox or .NET or whatever their iPod killer is called all looking rather lame. I don't think it will work here eihter. After all you already can search MSN from Windows Explorer and nobody bothers on account of the fact that the search results are so useless.

The weird thing about all of this, at least to me, is that MS had a really good opportunity to get Windows into the data centre between about 1999-2002 when Linux wasn't quite there and customers were looking for a cheaper alternative than Solaris/AIX etc. They missed it because they were so busy trying to be Sony and Sun and are now compounding the problem trying to be Google. In the mean time Linux has plugged the hole and is firmly established as the low cost data centre OS of choice.

The browser war was won when Microsoft removed any value from PC based browsers (you couldn't sell them anymore since MS gave their one away for free) - but that means that you end up with something that costs you money to maintain and support for no good reason, so you don't bother, and end up with something that looks as tiered as Internet Explorer (or a very tired thing, make up your own simile). Whilst I'm sure they could make a lot of money selling advertising space on Windows (the base Goggle profit stream) I can't help feeling that customers might not like it very much. And, of course, you don't need an expensive search engine R&D project to do this, you could just say randomly change everybody's wallpaper to an advert every 5 minutes or something.

Re:Microsoft's problem

[piovere]

Without ripping off Google

why would microsoft stop ripping off companies now?

Re:Microsoft's problem

[0x461FAB0BD7D2]

Let us not forget that Google is foraying into Microsoft's domain.

Gmail and Google Desktop Search are not accidents. Hotmail is extremely popular, and with Google Desktop Search, Google has learned that people will install replacements to Microsoft's own built-in services if they are better, and if they are branded.

And the browser war was never won. That was just the browser battle. By removing value from browsers, all Microsoft did was reduce the incentive for it to update its own browser after it gained near-ubiquity. Open-source has no problem with zero value, and this is why Mozilla has no problems working tirelessly on Firefox and Seamonkey. The browser war has just begun.

Re:Microsoft's problem

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

Yeah! And whats with AOL using AIM as the default messaging service? And aol's mail for the default email? Its so monopolistic! They should license YIM and embed it into aol to be fair to their competition.

Seriously, its their browser, why shouldnt they make the homepage their search? Moz's default is a moz branded google, how is this different?

Re:Microsoft's problem

[BuckaBooBob]

"In order to reverse the current trend in market share, they'd have to have a better algorithm than Google, a massive ad campaign, and the popular opinion on their side."

Umm I don't think Microsoft ever had a better product for anything but yet they gain hefty numbers the Market Place long before thier product reaches maturity.

IE was gaining a substancial market share before IE 4.0 was released and have you ever looked at IE 3? Compared to netscapes product it was a browser from the dark ages.

Re:Microsoft's problem

[jsebrech]

Microsoft may have won the browser war against netscape, but netscape lost it. Had netscape not put out such crappy products in the 4.x timeframe, they wouldn't have dropped below the 20 percent marketshare treshold, and people would have designed sites to work in both.

For microsoft to win the search engine war, google would have to lose it, and that's not very likely.

Re:Microsoft's problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorta like how Firefox 1.0 made Google my default start page, even though I explicitly told it not to during the install?

Re:Microsoft's problem

[goatan]

What General Gates refers to as the battle of netscape has ended, the battle for firefox is about to begin.

Re:Microsoft's problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd say 70% of my google searches are google groups. If any search engine wants me to switch to them from google they need to have every message google has (hard because I don't think anybody but deja was doing that) but update the articles way, way faster than google does (easy because it seems that google refreshes the articles like every 12 hours) and be at least as not annoying as google is (should be easy unless fucktards start adding dumb ideas).

Re:Microsoft's problem

[LOBOestepaRIO]

BS. I installed 1.0 over 1.0PR, and it kept my previous "about:blank" default home page.
Firefox kicks arse. GoAT.

Re:Microsoft's problem

[geg81]

If they would just compete without using their control over the OS as leverage, they would not be so bad (and maybe out of business?).

How is that different from what Apple does? If anything, Apple's desktop integration with on-line properties is even tighter.

It's not competition if they make it the default home page in IE from now on. And don't think for a moment they won't (for new installs anyways).

It does hurt their competitors, but what else do you want them to do? It's not a nice situation, but I can't figure out a mechanism to stop them from doing it that doesn't do more harm than good.

Re:Microsoft's problem

[dioscaido]

Microsoft has billions of dollars *in cash* at any given time. And a staff of 50k that grows by the day. This is a massive company, but it's built to branch out to new arenas quickly.

the word preview...

[Jimmy The Tulip]

Instead of using words like "alpha" or "beta" they are using a word "preview". i dont know what that means ?
btw, the font in which "search tech preview" is written and the color and the shadow..sucks!

Re:the word preview...

[eric_brissette]

Would you seriously know what "alpha" or "beta" means coming from Microsoft anyway? IE is on version 6.x.. I don't think their versioning scheme has anything to do with a level of quality.

Re:the word preview...

[Carnildo]

It's very simple:

Version 1 = alpha
Version 2 = beta
Version 3 = final
Version 4 = bugfix

This has held true with any number of Microsoft products. Look at Windows. Look at IE. Look at DirectX.

Prediction for most popular queries on day 1...

[seanellis]

"mozilla firefox" download
google

Re:Prediction for most popular queries on day 1...

[timts]

I am pretty sure this wont be. :)
on the other hand, how's amazon's a9 comparing to google?

Algorithmic search engine? WTF?

[jagripino]

Don't *all* search engines have to have, hmm, some kind of algorithm in them?

Marketing speak confuses me! Please stop!

Re:Algorithmic search engine? WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not the new Brute Force Search Engine (TM) I'm working on.

Re:Algorithmic search engine? WTF?

[tgv]

Is this the one where you simply present all pages you've ever encountered in one huge list?

You'd better not, since that has been patented by the British Museum!

Re:Algorithmic search engine? WTF?

[deetsay]

Don't *all* search engines have to have, hmm, some kind of algorithm in them?

It's a term coined up by intelligent marketing people. Don't *all* people have to have, hmm, some kind of intelligence in them?

Re:Algorithmic search engine? WTF?

[BlackHawk-666]

Is that the one which simply returns the entire internet in response to every search query? Customers love the comprehensive results, but are finding the download times to be prohibitive ;->

Re:Algorithmic search engine? WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

An algorithmic search engine is one that places more reliance on off-page factors such as inbound-links compared to on-page factors such as the page content and positioning of HTML elements. I agree it is meaningless in the computer geek world but it does mean something to SEOs. Of course Google and Yahoo! already hold patents on a lot of this technology.

Re:Algorithmic search engine? WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't *all* search engines have to have, hmm, some kind of algorithm in them?

Not for long, MS plans to patent 'search algoritms', they were used when Windows 3.11 was created, you know

Re:Algorithmic search engine? WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

AFAICT, it refers to the algorithm that executes the queries against the database and by implication the database structure and layout. Some websites try do exploit this to get to the top of the query results. So it's a bit of art trying to get relevant results to the queries without so much spam.

Re:Algorithmic search engine? WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

When they say "algorithmic search", they usually mean instead of "paid search", ie ads.

this article is oooooold

[evil_one666]

This article is from june 30th

Re:this article is oooooold

[OwlWhacker]

And it's silly:

Even though Microsoft is coming from behind, the company can't be counted out.

No kiddin'.

Microsoft doesn't just get a finger in the pie by leveraging it's anti-competitive and illegal monopoly, it licks up most of the pie with its gargantuan tongue of bundling and integration.

You shall use Microsoft solutions, even if they are inferior and present a security hazard. Microsoft has more than just a chance in anything it does.

Re:this article is oooooold

[aussie_a]

Obviously some Windows trolls were feeling upset over the Firefox hype.

Re:this article is oooooold

[mysticwhiskey]

And you win this month's "Google: Your sig does not compute" award!

Slow

[benjiboo]

Seems a little bit slow to me. Maybe due to being ./ed....

Re:Slow

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you like to make it slower?

1. Go to http://techpreview.search.msn.com/
2. Search for -qwertyuiop
(i.e. all pages which don't have 'qwertyuiop' on)
3. Laugh as the server maxes out returning practically every page on the Internet
4. Laugh more as several thousand /.ers try the same thing at once

Re:Slow

[Anonymous Coward]

Results 1 - 10 of about 2,000,000,000 containing -qwertyuiop

"Of about"? That must be one hell of a round off they've got there.

No Results Found

[Anonymous Coward]

http://techpreview.search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=m icrosoft

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Doubtful this will take any ground.

[Ambient_Developer]

I say it time and time again.. Microsoft is not a company of innovation (besides user interfaces), they are a company that aquires other companies. It is doubtful that a home-grown engine will beat the likes of google.. Especially being so late in the game, not only that what good will a face lift do? Google is already one of the easiest things out there, how can Microsoft make search even easier? THAT is the 100 million dollar question!

Re:Doubtful this will take any ground.

[blowdart]

Well I did try it. Despite searching for a phrase I use as the title of one of my pages the first hit was for another page on my site. Some work needed there.

BUT ... site previews are useful. Why? Because you can instantly make a guesstimate if it's the right type of site, or just a link/keyword whoring site for google ads and sponsored links. I've only seen site thumbnails on alexa before, actual page thumbnails are new to me. I'm willing to be proved wrong though :)

Re:Doubtful this will take any ground.

[Anonymous Coward]

I say it time and time again.. Microsoft is not a company of innovation

For the love of Pete, have you forgotten about Clippy? I mean before Clippy, how many bug-eyed talking paper clips did you know?

Re:Doubtful this will take any ground.

[Alioth]

But it will - because it will be the default search in the default web browser of the default desktop OS on over 90% of the world's personal computers.

Unless Google can do something really special (which it looks like they are trying to do - they can see the handwriting on the wall after seeing what Microsoft did to Netscape, Real et al. when they bundled their browser/media player as an inseparable piece of the OS) Google will fall just like Netscape and just like Real.

Microsoft don't innovate in user interfaces, either. The first usable version of Windows lagged the Macintosh by 6 years. "Innovative" features that will come in Longhorn are things that OS X will have already had for years. I'm not sure what Microsoft's malaise is in not making any real innovation (instead, buying or copying innovative ideas from others) - MS have a huge R&D budget, but nothing ever seems to come out of the truly innovative stuff their R&D department thinks up.

Re:Doubtful this will take any ground.

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's what we do...

You go to sort out someone's PC? If they've got MSN as the start page, switch it. If you write some shareware, how about checking for MSN as the start page with a "switch to google" option in there.

Re:Doubtful this will take any ground.

[Anonymous Coward]

No innovation, Microsoft, Surely your joking.. What about the legendary Microsoft BOB ;-)

Re:Doubtful this will take any ground.

[heldlik]

Oh oh, Ive got it! (TINFOILHATT ON)

This might be their way of turning flaws and failures into a nice profit. If their search engine uses their own flaws in the OS and software, to access the information on private PCs, they could build a far much better index than anyone else out there. If this is for real, then all your WORDs and WINDOWS might be open for all.

Btw, isnt this search-on-computer thingy a new and nifty feature of their next os?

(TINFOILHATT OFF)

phew

Re:Doubtful this will take any ground.

[LiquidCoooled]

MSN has been the default page on default computers for years.

Just having a search on a different page means nothing.

Innovation is the only way MS will win in the search arena.

Re:Doubtful this will take any ground.

[mormop]

I mean before Clippy, how many bug-eyed talking paper clips did you know?

200,000,000 the day I went into a stationary shop while tripping on Acid

Tech Preview?

[beders]

No results for my name or a random word. More worryingly no result for "porn". Got a long way to go chaps, $100 million seems a little steep for a input box linked to an error page...

Re:Tech Preview?

[IamTheRealMike]

Mwahahahah, not for me. For me the first result for "porn" is reportchildporn.com

I bet that'll go down like a lead balloon ...

Re:Tech Preview?

[Ohreally_factor]

Herberrt Kornfeld is your drug dealer?

I got it good at Midstate Office Supply. I gots my dope Lotus software, my stoopid-fresh dry-erase markers, my fly three-ring binders wit' tha pockets inside, and my own muthafuckin' men's-room key. Plus, all them fly Marketing Department hos wanna be freakin' my jock all tha time.

Search engine wars

[dauthur]

It seems that Microsoft might just be trying to cut in on the business that Google, Yahoo, AskJeeves and all those other engines are making. I don't know what kind of a fool would use a Microsoft search engine anyways, the index would have to be built from scratch, instead of the years of data that Google and Yahoo have accrued.

Re:Search engine wars

[northcat]

It seems that Microsoft might just be trying to cut in on the business that Google, Yahoo, AskJeeves and all those other engines are making.

No, Bill Gates is just trying to impress his wife. "Look at my search engine honey, search for 'bill gates nude'. I bet you have never seen THAT before!"

Re:Search engine wars

[dauthur]

Harharhar... I wouldn't be the least bit surprized if they figured some way to associate the 3 phrases "barber", "bill gates" and "del *.*", so that when people look up his barber, BSOD paradise.

Do they have to ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do they have to try and push themselves on to every possible market available, why not jsut stick to doing what they already do and trying to make that work correctly before continuing to try and monopolise every avenue of computing that they can think of?

Re:Do they have to ?

[ssj_195]

Yes, this is fully in accordance with Microsoft's mindset - whenever a new pie appears in the horizon (a floating pie lol wtf?!) Microsoft cannot stand not having a piece of it. To be honest, I think the fact that they cannot have all of it rankles them. I hate to sound like a typical anti-M$ "slashbot", but whenever I think of adjectives for Microsoft's whole corporate mindset, the only ones I can think of are "broken" and "diseased".

Re:Do they have to ?

[Ontheotherhand]

Self hate is a destructive emotion. just imagine thinking instead of reacting... btw I love Linux...., but Microsoft has an effective and successful coporate mindset. (maybe you were confusing them with the current administration in USA?) and i thought Google had already sold out to commercial interests. a bit more competition must be a good thing.

Dutch?

[tompercival]

Fantastic... dutch search results - just what I was after too.

Re:Dutch?

[tgv]

What's wrong with Dutch? Can't read it? Most people in this world can't read English either...

Re:Dutch?

[Hognoxious]

What's wrong with Dutch? Can't read it? Most people in this world can't read English either...

Not as most as the ones who can't read Dutch.

Re:Dutch?

[tgv]

So, either Mandarin or Spanish would be the obvious choices then, isn't it?

Te he pillado, tio.

Or, for the minority out there that speaks English: Got you there, buddy.

Perhaps I should have been more explicit, but the point was: there is nothing intrinsically wrong with search results in Dutch, as long as you've got the option to look for pages in the language you would like. And that is not English by default.

Re:Dutch?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you Dutch? If so, I suspect you're from the extreme East of the country - close to that other place where they're renowned for its great sense of humour.

That or your mother was what in Jersey was referred to as "a jerrybag".

Maybe..

[StormyWeather]

their 100m would have been better spent to stop the bleeding they are about to recieve at the hands of Mozilla before folks realize they can add specialized search engines in the search toolbar instead of just google. Once folks find out how wonderful this ability is I think it will even slap Google upside the head a bit. For real research I have found this an invaluable as using google tends to give me search results that are too broad, often from sources that are more difficult to document.

Re:Maybe..

[16K Ram Pack]

It's the elegant CTRL+F now for me. Just so elegant.

The deeper I get into Firefox, the more I realise how much I don't like IE.

Payback attempt

[Highpriest]

Can you say trying to get back at google for gmail? Making microsoft upgrade all their hotmail accounts to 250mb must have pissed lil billy off.

Re:Payback attempt

[AndroidCat]

My freebee Hotmail account is still 2M. (Already have a gmail account, thanks.)

Re:Payback attempt

[Anonymous Coward]

My hotmail account is still at 2MB. I delete 99% of my new email (I use it to register on websites I don't trust, so it gets all the spam), but it sucks that I have to check it very often. Not to mention 2MB accounts are useless for many kinds of work, try sending several autocad files to a hotmail account, heck, even single files can be over 2MB. Gmail screwed them because now there's a mainstream webmail provider that gives 'unlimited' space, why pay for a webmail account these days? I have a pop3 account from my ISP that I haven't even set up, I mean, I change ISPs every now and then, I've had 4 or more in the last 6 years, can you imagine changing phone numbers that often? And there isn't an equivalent to a phonebook for email, which makes it even more of a paint.

Re:Payback attempt

[mikechant]

They're still churning through (oldest accounts first). My 2 'old' accounts have been done, a recent 'throwaway' hasn't yet.

Biased

[Anonymous Coward]

At least they are not biased Click Here

Re:Biased

[Xel'Naga]

Yeah right they aren't biased: Quote from the top of your link:

Microsoft Sucks
I've begun to think maybe I should take down this page. I'm not as frothing-at-the-mouth against Microsoft as I used to be. ... pages around the world that already have the title Microsoft Sucks. A much more extensive and up-to ... and searching for the string "Microsoft sucks". I'm not sure why ...
www.cs.toronto.edu/~wayne/microsoft-sucks.htm l

The question is

[pagal_paanda]

The question remains, for how many months it will remain as "Beta"?

Re:The question is

[fronti]

it isn't beta at the day HURD is released... scnr max

crawler being the operative word

[Justabit]

I'd like to see it work first befor puting it down, I mean 100 mil $ spent by Bill gates GUARANTEES a superior product ....doesn't it?

Search Results:

[ArbiterOne]

Talk about search biasing: Results 1-15 of about 17513887 containing "linux"
Results 1-15 of about 31192494 containing "windows"
Results 1-15 of about 25424770 containing "microsoft"
Results 1-15 of about 6769904 containing "unix"

Re:Search Results:

[northcat]

On google:
Results 1 - 10 of about 195,000,000 for windows
Results 1 - 10 of about 162,000,000 for linux
Results 1 - 10 of about 44,400,000 for unix
Results 1 - 10 of about 163,000,000 for microsoft

So, google has a higher proportion of linux pages than msn. But wait before you start spinning your conspiracy theories. Google indexes the web archives of Linux related mailing lists and msn seems to be not so good at that. Excluding the mailing lists there a lot more pages contaning the term "windows" than "linux'. Also, since msn is run by Microsoft, the crawlers probably started at microsoft.com and msn.com and other microsoft run websites which obviously have more windows pages and links than linux related ones. So this might be an honest "mistake".

Re:Search Results:

[benjiboo]

And of course you are overlooking the fact that Windows has something like more than 80% market share.... Might just have a little to do with it!

One word why Microsoft will fail

[Anonymous Coward]

censorship

Re:One word why Microsoft will fail

[northcat]

Mod parent up. I searched for "fuck" and didn't get even one result. There are far too many non-porn related pages which contain words like this to be censored out.

The best part of all...

[Anonymous Coward]

is that when I searched for "Windows XP crack" it found a great page about an underground piracy ring called the SPA, they even gave me a number to call 1-800-388-PIR8. Thanks Microsoft!

Similarities

[ArbiterOne]

Check out the similarities:
http://search.yahoo.com/
http://search.msn.com/
http://www.google.com/

Re:Similarities

[Anonymous Coward]

Because they finally got that a cluttered interface (like the old portal sites or when altavista got turned into a "portal") are confusing, load slowly and people don't like waiting for a search engine to load.

Best search engine

[Libor Vanek]

Just try to search "best search engine" and enjoy what comes out:
http://www.search.msn.com/results.aspx?FORM=SRCHWB &q=best%20search%20engine

Re:Best search engine

[Anonymous Coward]

And oddly enough msn search gave the correct result and google did not.

Re:Best search engine

[robfoo]

MSN comes in at #11! They're obviously biasing the results in their favour! ;)

Re:Best search engine

[Anonymous Coward]

And Best Web Browser returns equally interesting results... :)

Re:Best search engine

[jimicus]

That looks remarkably like a Google results page, in terms of structure rather than content.

Example:

http://www.search.msn.com/results.aspx?FORM=SRCHWB &q=best%20search%20engine
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q =best+search+engine&btnG=Google+Search

Surely Microsoft haven't chosen to rip-off their design based on the market leader?

Re:Best search engine

[Anonymous Coward]

try best web browser

Re:Best search engine

[mkeroppi]

The google links are more useful to someone who wants the "best search engine".

Re:Best search engine

[Anonymous Coward]

The new-ish Yahoo Search also looks remarkably like Google:

http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=UTF-8&fr=sfp&p=b est+search+engine

Tit for tat

[Anonymous Coward]

With Microsoft around what's the use in even trying to do anything? You know you do something and then the 800lb gorilla jumps into the game and all the kids want to go home.

Is this just to give the impression that Microsoft isn't a monopoly that it is?

Like giving Apple a years head start on iTunes, we all know M$ could have had a store open within a month.

Microsoft realized they need Apple's R&D and Apple needed to make a buck for awhile, so they slow played their store.

Now the 800 lb gorilla has appeared with it's "universal" answer to iTunes. Well I say screw them!

Linux and Mac OS X to rule the world!

First step, just refuse to run M$ software period, it's not bad actually. You'll LIVE!

lack of trust

[vinsci]

Microsofts search engine lacks the most important feature: trusted results.

In the past, it has been shown that Microsoft blocks search results that are contrary to its own business interests.

Re:lack of trust

[Anonymous Coward]

So you don't think their idea of trustworthy computing will fix it?

Re:lack of trust

[DelawareBoy]

Kinda like Google does with governments it wants to be friendly too? (example: China?)

Re:lack of trust

[Anonymous Coward]

In the past, it has been shown that Microsoft blocks search results that are contrary to its own business interests.

Has it? I've seen plenty of these claims, and they've always been disproven. In all the cases I saw they had some set of "featured results" or something that showed up first, and if you went a few pages in you'd get to the "real" results. It was always these featured results that made it appear that they had a disproportionately low number of hits for "Linux", for example.

No Results - Would you like to..

[Nikkodemus]

search for Chinese Dissidents on Amazon.com?

W3C page for HTML nowhere in the first 20 results

[northcat]

I searched for 'html' in their "preview" search engine and the w3c page for HTML was nowhere in the first 20 results. I didn't look beyond 20 results. The w3c page should have been in at least the first 20 results. Is this search engine really that good?

If their past strategy is any guide...

[DonDiablo]

... after getting enough users from directing all windows searches to their engine, they will create "search extensions" for all the sites hosted in a Microsoft server, and "special html/jsp search tags" for sites developed using their tools, which will produce a better placement on their search results.

Re:If their past strategy is any guide...

[16K Ram Pack]

The problem with doing such a thing is that ultimately it will fail consumers who will go elsewhere.

Search engines have to serve consumers, not providers.

Re:If their past strategy is any guide...

[Ender_Stonebender]

Damn right.

Google, and only Google, so far, has realised this. It comes down to an analysis of the last source of the money that you can control. Web sites get money from advertisers; so most web sites try to keep their advertisers happy. But Google realised that in order for advertisers to make money off by advertising on their website, the website's users had to be happy. (Okay, this explanation may be a bit oversimplified, but I was up at 4:00 AM to roll new software to production systems so don't ask for better.) That is why Google doesn't have big-ass banner/skyscraper style advertisements: They would drive users away, which would make advertising on the site worth less.

--Ender

Re:If their past strategy is any guide...

[16K Ram Pack]

True indeed about adverts. There's also a thing about ads as a service (bear with me on this).

I hate big ugly ads, particularly from large corps. If I want to see mega corp ads, I'll watch TV.

A lot of Google ads are small companies. So, if I type in "organic coffee", I might get some specialist provider on the ads who are the sort of company I want to deal with.

Unbiased results?? ROTFL

[pagal_paanda]

I'm interested in seeing if searching for Mozilla or any other competition, will it give censured results or would it try to stay unbiased. Although, considering M$'s history, unbiased is far-fetch. And, more important is how many users would actually switch from Google, even if it's superior to Google (highly doubtful). I for one, would like to see a benchmark to see the difference.

Almost there...

[Luigi30]

They have 99 million matches for Linux. Google has 162 million.

Re:Almost there...

[alib001]

Quality not quantity. Unless you have an analysis of the quality of the results then it really doesn't matter how many either of them return. I'd settle for a few relevant results over many mixed (relevant/SEO'd cruft) results any day.

Simple interface

[northcat]

Microsoft is finally beginning to learn that simplicity is very important. Look at the UI of their search engine page. Hmm... A word that starts with 'G' and ends with 'oogle' comes to my mind..

Looks just like google

[ChrisMDP]

Sadly, Microsoft are up to their old tricks again...

1. Release a sub-standard product which looks like the better original.
2. Rely on their massive brand penetration to increase market share.
3. Throw enough cash at something to make it worthwhile.

It irritates me that they do this - it slows the rate of internet progress down by duplicating other peoples ideas. Why not invest in google and build on what someone else has done, rather than trying to completely monopolise all areas of the internet?

Re:Looks just like google

[wombatmobile]

.

Google copied Microsoft.

Bill Gates is the world's most brilliant innovator. He invented the word processor, spreadsheet, database, compiler and the operating system, and then he went on to invent the internet as well. Recently, he has cured cancer.

Stop denigrating Bill Gates just because you can't be as good as him.

Bill Gates is a resolute leader.

wtf?

[Mr_Silver]

although it appears this is mostly a face-lift (despite a year of development and $100 million investment)

I thought it was only marketing that didn't understand that just because it looks the same, doesn't necessarily mean you've done nothing under the hood.

THE bot?

[knipknap]

I wonder whether that's the bot that has been scanning my website for three days by attempting to "crawl" through all session ids and causing more then 1 GByte of traffic.

"msnbot/0.11 (+http://search.msn.com/msnbot.htm)"

It was only stoppable by blocking the IP. (robots.txt was only read once before it started) Great, smart bot, really.

Re:THE bot?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe you should make provide a single entrance to the sessions via post-method, make the sessions expire and redirect expired links to sessionless urls?

Re:THE bot?

[AndroidCat]

According to reports, it does obey /robots.txt and the meta tags. (It only reads /robots.txt once a day.) Are you using an exclusion tag of "msnbot"?

Re:THE bot?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder whether that's the bot that has been scanning my website for three days by attempting to "crawl" through all session ids and causing more then 1 GByte of traffic.

1G of traffic? Let's see the logs.

Re:THE bot?

[Anonymous Coward]

So you admit you fucked up your robots.txt. Smart webmaster, really.

I stand corrected

[alistair]

5 minutes ago that was exactly the result, now it returns around 1,500,000 results and is looking faitly accurate. Maybe they noticed people were visiting the preview site and decided to turn the back end back on.

3 bad results.

[caluml]

Orange. No results for Orange, the mobile phone company.
Linux. No pointers to linux.org.
Google. Returns the Dutch/Belgian version of the page. Why?

Re:3 bad results.

[BuilderBob]

Orange. No results for Orange, the mobile phone company.
Linux. No pointers to linux.org.
Google. Returns the Dutch/Belgian version of the page. Why?

These are no longer true. I know it used to do this but now ...

'Orange' returns Orange.co.uk.
'Linux' returns linux.org
'google' returns google.com
'microsoft sucks' returns fuckmicrosoft.com
'abu graib' returns the photographs of inside the prison.
'lindows' returns lindows.com

This is from Firefox 0.8 on Redhat Linux.

BB

Re:3 bad results.

[Anonymous Coward]

Orange: top result www.orange.co.uk
Linux: top result www.linux.org
Google: top result www.google.com

What more do you want?

Re:3 bad results.

[Hognoxious]

Google. Returns the Dutch/Belgian version of the page. Why?

Hotmail/MSN does the same thing sometimes. I think they discovered some way to link IP adresses to countries (via the ISP, one assumes) and think it's cool. As a Brit living in Belgium, I say it isn't; it's a pain it the arse.

Re:3 bad results.

[caluml]

I ran those 3 searches a minute before I posted them. If they used to be true, they still are. I am in the UK. Maybe it's messed up over here?

Re:3 bad results.

[caluml]

Just searched again now. For orange, and Orange.
Orange County Government Web site
... complied with the State Environmental Quality Review More... 10-27-04 This Week in Orange County By Orange County Executive Edward A. Diana I wrote to you earlier that I had been facilitating budget ...
http://www.co.orange.ny.us/ cached feedback

Linux - first result:
Linux Gazette | Making Linux just a little more fun!
Linux Gazette would like to thank its sponsor: Latest Posts - Home - Past Issues - Old Format - The Answer Gang - FAQ Submit an Article - Sections Ask The Answer Gang a Question - Send Comment to ...
http://www.linuxgazette.com/ cached feedback

Search for Google, and I get a link to toolbar.google.com with www.google.com as the second result.

Re:3 bad results.

[BuilderBob]

Mine were from the U.K. also.

There are two different databases working at search.msn.com. The first at www., and another at techpreview. www. presumably has some forced results for common terms (like Linux/ Orange) and even returns the .co.uk versions from msn.co.uk

techpreview. on the other hand, seems untuned. It returns a wierd advertising blog when you search for 'news'. So their "algorithmic search" isn't quite there yet.

Maybe they need to sacrifice some pigeons.

BB

Everybody love MS!

[ceeam]

Any info on what "user agent" string will they use? I bet people will be finding all kinds of... interesting stuff on "Moogle".

Country-specific redirection borked

[OblongPlatypus]

Clicking on the tech preview link in the blurb redirects me to a French version of the page, at techpreview.search.msn.fr. The problem, you ask? I'm in Spain.

Minor detail, sure, but add it to the shaky performance of the actual search, and this product would seem to require more than a couple of months of fine-tuning.

Filtering out queries

[ttys00]

Will they be filtering out queries with this engine as well (eg. xfree86 being filtered as discussed here a while back)?

Of course. And while they do that, I won't be using it.

Re:Filtering out queries

[Ender_Stonebender]

But unless you use it, how will you know if they are continuing to do it?

--Ender ...it was just a thought.

MSN Bombs

[Nuskrad]

My three favourite googlebombs still work! Also interesting are Best operating system and Worst operating System

Re:MSN Bombs

[Anonymous Coward]

Hah, the first result for "Worst operating system" is great. That PDF book gave me a good laugh.

Microsoft compares Unix to a virus because it is small, portable, and has the ability to commandeer resources. So what Windows isn't a virus because it is bloated, only runs on the i386 architecture, and squanders resources?

I just entered "fsck microsoft" into their search

[Anonymous Coward]

....and what do you guess. It returned "microsoft.com"!

This isn't insightful

[SimianOverlord]

Google have built up a market by offering ad views alongside their search engine, thus making money. It isn't about the search, it's about that market, and Microsoft moving into new markets is what it is all about.

They do not need a better algorithm than Google (which is becoming increasingly gamed by shady companies and not as good as it was anyway), they just need something "good enough", like their OS is "good enough".

As for reversing the trend, Microsoft have 1) leverage in the form of their existing OS userbase (as others have mentioned, using MS search as default), 2) Massive cash surplus 3)Brand recognition. They do not have to give things away for free. They have to fight against a competitor with a larger market share, something they have done in the past quite successfully. Do not confuse the Slashdot echochamber with objective reality.

Monopoly abuse

[Anonymous Coward]

Since it'll probably end up being default start-up page in IE, lots.

2 words: Monopoly abuse

The barrier to entry here...

[tclark]

...is our habits. In order to make some real ground in this area, MS has to come up with something so compelling that it will motivate us to change. Google is already working for me - so what can MS do for me that Google doesn't already do?

Re:The barrier to entry here...

[Anonymous Coward]

Being the default search engine for everything you do via Windows.

Junk results?

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for the Austrian data protection commission. Among other things I service their website http://www.dsk.gv.at/.

So, I went to MSN search and tried "data protection Austria". What do I get?

** The first hit is http://www.privacyexchange.org/legal/nat/omni/aust riasum.html - ridiculously outdated. E-Mail-Address is junk, Phone number is incomplete, Fax number is junk. I have mailed privacyexchange repeatedly and asked for an update. I did not even get a reply. On the bottom it says: "Document updated May 30, 2001"

** The second hit is http://europa.eu.int/ISPO/legal/en/dataprot/datapr ot.html - another grossly outdated page. It even says "archived" on the page itself.

** The third hit is the Austrian government website. Close.

** The fourth hit is in Bulgaria. You wouldn't want to know how badly outdated this one is.

On the bottom of the search page, it says "Not satisfied with your results? Help us improve." I click on that link and get a feedback page in Spanish.

First impression: Junk.

It'll be crap, but it'll be the preset default

[gotan]

Microsoft never gets it right the first time, usually after about three or four tries they come up with something half-decent, still far inferior to the competition (remember Windows 3.1, or the early versions of IE?).

But they don't need to, they will heavily leverage it via Windows and IE, It'll be "built in" and soon it'll be such an "essential" component of the OS that no Windows-copy can be sold without it.

That's how MS leveraged DOS to spread Windows, and how they leveraged Windows to kill netscape with the (then) inferior IE, how they attempt to leverage Windows to spread their mediaplayer and, even more important, media-formats and how they try to muscle away free-for-all protocolls like TCP/IP in favour of their patented crap.

Why should it be different this time?

Netcraft says the hosting servers run on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?host=search.m sn.com

Re:Netcraft says the hosting servers run on Linux

[alib001]

Mostly wrong.

...the DNS directs us to a server operated by Akamai... Akamai's http caching servers run Linux, and so we report Linux as the operating system. However Akamai also forwards the http Server: header from the original server as part of the cached content, and so we report "Microsoft-IIS/6.0" as the web server.

Search Results

[chia_monkey]

Oh my. I can just see the search results now:

Search entry: "Antarctic Penguin"

Search Result: A paperclip pops up on your screen and says "It appears you are searching for a penguin. Did you know Microsoft servers are cheaper to run than Linux? Would you like to buy one now?"

Oh well, at least one on their search works:

[Anonymous Coward]

http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?FORM=SMCRT&q=ba stards

That's going to go down real well.

Google vs MS--Googling yourself

[TFGeditor]

I did a MS search on my name, then on on Google. MS returned 1,845 hits, Google 919. What is your Google/MS hit number?

Re:Google vs MS--Googling yourself

[Bambi Dee]

1 (MSN)/5 (Goo), almost all genealogy sites. 133/495 without ""s,but my first name's also the name of a month. MSN doesn't even find me on my website. Weird. It does find other words...

Re:Google vs MS--Googling yourself

[atlacatl]

Google/MS/A9 = 153,000/48,951/41,500...

Google and A9 - correctly :) - return my site first.

What would be freaky is that if search engines customized search results and display results depending on your preferences. I.e. I search for my name, so display sites related to "me" only - However, another person with the same search, would receive a different "me" type of results. You know what I mean, jelly bean?

Re:W3C page for HTML nowhere in the first 20 resul

[alib001]

Bullshit. It's actually the 20th result.

Search engine ?

[Anonymous Coward]

This move could well invoke a change in terminology for this kind of application.

I predict that after some time the name for the MS engine will still be "Search engine".
Google on the other hand will be defined as a "Find Engine".

Retep.

I already feel

[conteXXt]

violated.

Microsoft spidering (for) me?

hmmm time to update robots.txt (as if they'll REALLY honour it)

Implausible Deniability ?

[ehack]

Can I selectiveley deny the M$ search engine the entry to my site ?

Edmund

Deep web technology for "niche"

[Anonymous Coward]

I have heared that yahoo and MSN both are interested in deep-web technology and they have contacts with omni-explorer technologies and other who are developing such a thing.

Hmmm...

[goatan]

From the article

We know empirically that paid inclusion improves the quality of results, and reduces spam,

What! in my experience the paid inclusion are often only loosely related to what I'm searching for where as the normal stuff is usually bang on at least for the first couple of pages.

this won't be so bad if they put the paid results to one side like Google but if there part of the main result (presumably at the top) the accuracy is going to be reduced.

Re:Hmmm...

[16K Ram Pack]

Paid results are rarely what I'm looking for. Page ranking based on use works much, much better.

As a weird simile, do you read the Good Beer Guide, Ian? It's a publication by CAMRA and the choices are put in based on local branch involvement. In other words, pubs that people use and like get put in there. And IMO anyway, it's the best. Occassionally you get a duff one, but overall it's really good.

Most guides are based on paid inspectors and paid entries. A lot of pubs don't get in because they won't pay for entries. And sometimes, I'm sure these are pubs who just aren't marketing savvy or have a view that they don't see why they should pay to get into a book that is paid for anyway, but are quality places who concentrate on their service over marketing.

Re:Hmmm...

[goatan]

As a weird simile, do you read the Good Beer Guide, Ian? It's a publication by CAMRA and the choices are put in based on local branch involvement. In other words, pubs that people use and like get put in there. And IMO anyway, it's the best. Occassionally you get a duff one, but overall it's really good.

Actually i do it's a perfect example of a guide with unpaid adverts and there increased accuracy.

Search results comparison

[Anonymous Coward]

Searching for "google":
MSN: 69,001,766
Google: 94,900,000

Searching for "gmail":
MSN: 790,651
Google: 4,950,000

Searching for "msn":
MSN: 68,332,068
Google: 72,300,000

Searching for "hotmail"
MSN: 45,202,554
Google: 32,400,000

If it's as good as the XP local search

[Hognoxious]

If it's as good as the XP search assistant/companion, it will probably suck big time. I can generally tolerate XP but that is a total pile of crap. Crap concept, crap interface, crap implementation. Crap.

No faith in their own product

[BlackHawk-666]

I notice they're using Akamai instead of a cluster of cheap Windows servers. Nice of them to recommend to everyone else to use their technology, but then not trust it for their own stuff.

subversion:~# telnet techpreview.search.msn.com 80
Trying 213.253.9.73...
Connected to a213-253-9-73.deploy.akamaitechnologies.net.
Esca pe character is '^]'.
HEAD /

HTTP/1.0 400 Bad Request
Server: AkamaiGHost
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Length: 161
Expires: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 12:56:31 GMT
Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 12:56:31 GMT
Connection: close

Re:No faith in their own product

[hsmith]

It isn't as good as www.msnads.com using Apache kekeke

Re:No faith in their own product

[Anonymous Coward]

netcraft says its running Linux.

Re:No faith in their own product

[janpf]

ironic that, as far as I know, Akamai servers used to be mostly linux ...

Re:No faith in their own product

[arrow]

For what it's worth, their backend machines do run Windows:

http://sasrchbvta02.search.msn-int.com was running Microsoft-IIS on Windows 2000 when last queried at 10-Nov-2004 17:47:58 GMT

http://sasrchbvta03.search.msn-int.com was running Microsoft-IIS on Windows 2000 when last queried at 10-Nov-2004 17:52:20 GMT

etc...

Re:No faith in their own product

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut up! You're NOT SUPPOSED to present valid points! You're supposed to zealously and ignorantly attack Windows and/or Microsoft.

Fuck off.

Funny algorithm

[mecanicaz]

Seemingly this new algorithmic search wants to play it smart, simply having the word SCO repeated several times in the top search result when I search for my name doesn't mean that this msn new search points directly to SCO.com when searching for my name.

Its Broken or Tainted

[BuckaBooBob]

Try Searching for Open Exchange ... Even Give them the doubt the results arn't tainted... Search for Open Exchange and Linux ... Nope results are Tainted!

Re:Its Broken or Tainted

[praxis]

Could you explain what you mean by tainted in these scenarios? For both the search "Open Exchange" and the search "Open Exchange and Linux" I get results I think are reasonable.

To say that the results are tainted implies to me that the software adjusts results in an abritrary manner set by a human who wishes to censor content or promote unrelated content. That's a pretty strong accusation based on two searches (with which I don't see a problem) and not knowing the implementation. Perhaps with enough data points, some facets of the implementation become apparent and a stronger case can be made, but I don't see that here.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Even worse

[Safety Cap]

They're not innovating. How about finding new areas to add value instead of going into areas that are already established?

Creating a new search engine will not help many people

Creating a new service that allows people to ____ (that no one has thought of yet) can help many people.

Re:Even worse

[Anonymous Coward]

Creating a new service that allows people to ____

Ohh, lets see if I can get this right:

"Creating a new service that allows people to leverage synergies in a competetive market place while at the same time maintaining focus of core issues and high revenue development streams"

What do I win?!?

Re:Even worse

[Mr Z]

Well, because you hosed the grammar at "focus of core issues" (the "of" should be "on"), you get a stale MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE:

gnarf.asylum.net/unix:0 MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 4b7c0933064418425979354d156f0466

Bon appétit!

--Joe

Viral advertising

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, they really know how to generate buzz! I know "Google" was a catchy word back in the day, but now the only thing my peeps are talking about around the water cooler is this new-fangled "search technology preview."

Nice and clean

[jmcmunn]

I can't say that this will be my first stop when searching (Google will be until they stop being the best) but often times, if my result is not in the first few pages of Google, rather than figure out the exact phrase I need to search for to find the site I am looking for, I just hit a few other engines to see if my original phrase does the trick.

I can see how this new MS search page would become stop number 2, in front of Yahoo as long as they keep it clean and light like Google is. Then I'll move along to Yahoo of Lycos or wherever.

So yeah, I think this is a good improvement for my general searching needs, but it is going to take something amazing to replace Google as my number one choice. It's sort of a brand loyalty at this point.

This is great...

[Anonymous Coward]

... I've never had a search engine crash on me before. I guess I'll get to see what that looks like.

shades of eWorld

[sagefire.org]

Hmmm... Microsloth starting its own search engine because they are jealous of someone else's success?

Well, most of you are probably thinking Netscape right now, but I am thinking eWorld...

Apple started eWorld to get a piece of the AOL pie (now shrinking - thank the deity of your choice). Apple had no previous investment in online Community. They thought their brand name would be all that was needed.

You would figure Gates & Co. would have learned this lesson with MSN (their attempt to steal bits of the AOL pie). But no, now they are going up against Google, Yahoo, et al.

If M$ really wanted to make a go of the search engine market, they would buy one of the past giants and take it in house and add some MS only features to it. Something like Lycos, Altavista, Magellan!

After all, this is how they tried to bury Netscape. They based Internet Exploiter on Mosaic code and just added features at first.

Microsoft?

[Anonymous Coward]

... what is that?

--------
Get Linux in your box: http://www.linux.com/

Re:W3C page for HTML nowhere in the first 20 resul

[Mathiasdm]

Well, in google, it's the third result!

When you search for linux...

[jlefeld]

It will bring you to the page on how Microsoft saves your company more money over Linux.

One more app to ignore

[Marcus Erroneous]

M$ will end up having to do what they always do:
1. Leverage their strangle hold on the desktop. Most people go with the defaults anyway, so this will drive them a lot of traffic.

2. "Integrate" it with a version of Office. This is a "feature" as their new versions of Office are more net aware anyway, this will become a "feature" of Office showing their "innovation".

3. When all else fails, "integrate" it into the core operating system so that you can't remove it. Again, this will be a "feature" showing their "leadership" and "innovation" in making the operating system more net aware.

4. Add .dlls that break compatability with Google during an "upgrade" to one of their other products as well as sneak the dll into all of their future apps. A la their attack on RealPlayer.

5. Leverage their new found power with the current economic/political regime and have everyone working for Google audited by the IRS, then sue them in court for IP violations.

6. Ad nauseum deceitful attacks on every level except product performance and usefulness. Otherwise, they just wouldn't be Micro$oft.

King of the Hill of Search Engines?

[the_mad_poster]

That search ain't right....

Re:this article is oooooold (from the submitter)

[xmas2003]

Ummmmm ... I saw this story on CNet's main page and completely missed the date ... and the parent is right about it being "from June" ... or is it?

After reading his comments and looking again at the article, I said "oooops, I goofed" ... and Cnet musta goofed too ... BUT Now CNN is also reporting that Microsoft is getting in

Great

[floydman]

Now we can have a blue screen (BSOD) on my browser, as if the OS wasnt enough.

Unbiased?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://techpreview.search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=k rantenkoppen

let try

[Anonymous Coward]

best browser
best web server
best operating system

Re:other queries

[Anonymous Coward]

At least their "best browser" query is more complimentary than Google's - that doesn't even show IE in the first 50 results.

More Progress Needed

[Anonymous Coward]

The new Microsoft search engine is definitely not as good as Google in terms of relevance. It still seems to place quite a bit of reliance on easily manipulated and misleading on-page facors and has a fairly simple minded algorithm for analysing these. So it won't blow us away with the relevance of its results.

The robot is going frantic at the moment but over the last few months I've noticed a big increase in robot visits from Yahoo!, Google and many others as they try to compete in the search space. The worsed offender was Convera, a bunch of net spooks with links to the US govt who search the web looking for misuse of brands, terrorist messages and stuff like that. They pulled every page off my site 3 times over a weekend, worse than having the Fed pull your condo apart looking for illegal pr0n movies (don't worry they are hidden elsewhere).

At least MSN Search has nearly every page of my site in its index. Convera along with others are just net.leeches.

Two words...

[Khan]

Who cares.

As far as I'm concerned, they can spend all their money on crap like this. In the long run, it will be another MS Bob ;-)

Doesn't seem like Google have anything to fear...

[Kjeks]

After some quick searches it seems it returns more or less random pages containing the search words, not the most popular.

For example a search for the name of the village I live in in Norway returned completly irrelevant results on the first pages.
All the pages that's ranked first on Google are ranked in 30-40th place here.

How exactly does it rank the results? Not by popularity it seems...

Good results

[gnoos]

I typed in 'microsoft sucks' and got very relevant results

No porn, no searchy!

[thegnu]

How the heck could any self-respecting person use a search engine that returns so few applicable results on the search term "pussy"?

Geez.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

I had never used yahoo search before. It looks *exactly* like google, apart from the big Yahoo logo.

msn search is really similar as well. From the way text ads are done, to the font colours, etc. Complete rip offs of google.

Or rather...

[thegnu]

"Are you trying to convert from Linux to Windows?"

I hate Clippy. Every time you try to search for help, he tries to interpret what you're saying instead of just returning pages with instances of your search term.

5 billion

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope MS pumps 5 billion into their search product every year for the next 5 years. maybe then it will be half what google is today. competition is good right?

plus, it will be a good distraction and slow Microsoft down. I doubt they would do it, but it would be funny if they did.

Remote searching of HD

[Anonymous Coward]

Its not a bug, its a feature!!!

Query : search engine

[roxtar]

Try searcfing for "search engine" at google.com. Oddly the first page doesnt have google's name on it.

buzzword

[Reez]

"algorithmic search engine" ... now that sounds good :)

Will Microsoft never learn...

[pandrijeczko]

...that it is totally impossible for one single company to have such a wide portfolio of products and services that are also going to be recognised by the rest of the world as being reliable and good?

Microsoft have their fingers in just about ever single "software pie" there is currently yet just about everything they make is half-baked, unreliable and full of security holes.

Is it not better to follow the example of Adobe, Symantec, etc. and focus on particular product areas (like graphics and imaging or security) to become specialist and recognised in a much narrower range of products rather than a "jack of all trades but master of none"?

Perhaps if they left search engines to Google and Yahoo, embedded OSes to Palm & Symbian and internet servers to UNIX and Linux, etc., MS wouldn't have the scorn and hatred of just about the entire human race vent on them and would be recognised as product leaders in the desktop OS and office applications arena.

Re:Will Microsoft never learn...

[Mant]

They are scared that something could come along and supplant the PC desktop and it's desktop based apps that their success comes from.

Despite the fact browsers, network computers, mobile phones and the like haven't done it yet. They want to be in every market that just might threaten their current dominance, and push things back to a PC destop hub to keep it relevant.

haha

[deander2]

at the bottom of my search:

"Results 1 - 10 of about 8 containing deander2"

first off: "about 8"?!?
second, WTF? can't they check for 10 results?

Re:haha

[praxis]

Hm, I get:

Results 1-5 of about 5 containing "deander2"

The fact that they put a static text "about" doesn't bother me too much, and it appears they fixed the static "1-10" which did bother me.

It's hardly brilliant...

[nick8325]

Search for 'Search' on Google:
search.com
AltaVista
Yahoo
Excite
All TheWeb
Lycos ...

Search for 'Search' on new MSN:
Vault: the most trusted name in career information
Destiny Group
CareerBuilder
Realtor.com
Lycos People Search

So, the fifth link on MSN is nearly - but not quite - relevant.

Incidentally, Google doesn't list itself until 20th when you search for "search" on it. Which is interesting... maybe it's because of its minimalistic website which doesn't mention searching very much.

Re:It's hardly brilliant...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's good to see everyone pitching in to troubleshoot M$'s new search engine. I'm sure they appreciate all the feedback. This message brought to you in part by le Régime de Vichy and Planter's Peanuts.

Obsolete news....

[Stephan Schulz]

...the article is dated JUNE 30TH (!), i.e. "Thursday" is probably July 1st, 4 month back, at the height of the dot-com boom ;-).

how did you find such a person?

[jxyama]

>You would be amazed. This week I discovered someone in my office who knew nothing about google.

i imagine you had to use google to find such a rare person? :P

Good to see "innovation"

[atlacatl]

Good to see M$ innovating.

Google must be pretty happy, as they are setting the standard for search engine Web UIs. I'd call the new search engine: MicroGooglelookalikeSoft Search Engine.

New from Microsoft Press

[value_added]

Microsoft(TM) Search Hacks is a collection of industrial-strength, real-world, tested solutions to practical problems. The book offers a variety of interesting ways for power users to mine the enormous amount of information that only Microsoft Search(TM) can provide access to, and helps you have fun while doing it.

You'll learn clever and powerful methods for using the new and advanced Microsoft(TM) Search Wizards and the new Microsoft Search(TM) API, including how to implement Microsoft(TM) Windows(TM) Scripting Technology to build custom business applications based on Microsoft(TM) Search. You'll discover hidden and undocumented registry settings, get to know the new and friendly Microsoft Search Assistant, and how to unleash the full power of ActiveX(TM) Technology. Microsoft(TM) Search Hacks contains more than 100 tips, tricks and scripts that you can use to become instantly more effective in your research. By the time you're finished reading Microsoft(TM) Search Hacks, you'll be performing registry edits and rebooting your system just like a professional systems administrator.

Each hack can be read in just a short time and is fully cross-referenced with Microsoft(TM) Knowledge Base Articles, Microsoft(TM) Security Bulletin Numbers, and links to informative articles and free downloads to all Microsoft(TM) Search updates. Microsoft(TM) Search Hacks can save hours of searching for the right answers. Written by the Microsoft(TM) Search Team for intelligent, advanced users, Microsoft(TM) Hacks will reclaim the term "hacking" for the good guys.

Microsoft's(TM) new Hacks Series is written in the spirit of true hackers -- the people who drive drive innovation and set standards.

Very good

[AShuvalov]

Google needs the competition. Microsoft is under asslt on all fronts - why Google should be a monopoly?

MS suck anyway, so no harm will be done :-)))

just like Firefox plugins ?

[Anonymous Coward]

you have seen the default set ?
yahoo, amazon, ebay etc etc

nothing like giving the big boys a helping hand times must be hard, now how do i delete them ?, oh wait i have to delve into some obscure folder back in 10 min

Re:just like Firefox plugins ?

[Technician]

you have seen the default set ?
yahoo, amazon, ebay etc etc

Yes, AOL, MSN, ESPN, Disney store..

Most of it is media outlets, Media previews, search engines (Lycos, Ask, etc.), and shopping sites. Yahoo happens to be all 3 sections bundled into one.

they are not honoring robots.txt

[an_mo]

I have found one case where they are not honoring robots.txt. Ok it's a preview, but it's bothersome nonetheless.

Sorry, I am not posting the link, you just have to trust me or test some other site.

Re:they are not honoring robots.txt

[WebMasterJoe]

I have found one case where they are not honoring robots.txt. Ok it's a preview, but it's bothersome nonetheless.

Sorry, I am not posting the link, you just have to trust me or test some other site.

Is it possible you have an error in your syntax, and other spiders may be lenient on that particular error?

Without any sort of details, I think you'll find that most people will not believe you. My first impression is that you simply have an error in the file.

Re:they are not honoring robots.txt

[an_mo]

Here are more details. I have a file called norobots.txt in the server htdocs root, with the following content:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /

The files I have found from that search are in a subdirectory of the root. I tried to do an even more refined search in google and there was no trace of those pages

Re:they are not honoring robots.txt

[WebMasterJoe]

Shouldn't that file be called robots.txt? Google might honor norobots.txt in the same manner that IE quietly deals with missing table tags - in other words, enough people improperly named the file norobots.txt that Google decided it would be better to look for that file as well as the standard robots.txt file.

Re:they are not honoring robots.txt

[an_mo]

ok thanks, my guess is that I copied instructions from some random web page...

no NEAR operator

[Sai Babu]

When will these guys take a cue from altavista.com and incorporate the NEAR operator. For example Pussy NEAR cat returns a much higher density of feline related URLs.

best web browser?...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.search.msn.com/results.aspx?FORM=SMCRT& q=best%20web%20browser

$100 million?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we get 1% of that for the IE team to add better standards support? Priorities please?

More tinfoil hat fodder.

[saur2004]

Anyone remember what the infamous Registration Wizard did when upgrading from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95?

I wouldnt put it past them to code a phone home feature for clickthroughs for this.

Even if they get caught doing it, I can just hear the argument now, "Heck Yahoo, AltaVista and others collect aggregate data. Just look at what the URL becomes when you mouse over the link from thier lists."

I for one, love that google STILL does not do that.

Re:More tinfoil hat fodder.

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone remember what the infamous Registration Wizard did when upgrading from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95?

no i don't...can someone enlighten me?

Re:More tinfoil hat fodder.

[saur2004]

Why Microsoft is evil Section 2.2.2

Re:More tinfoil hat fodder.

[saur2004]

Sorry for following up to myself but this is an even better link

Re:W3C page for HTML nowhere in the first 20 resul

[alib001]

And in www.search.msn.com it's currently the first result returned.

Sadly, included in the top Google results I get for 'HTML' is a lot of cruft (my default setting is to view 50/page):

• Adobe Acroboat download
• ENCHANTED LEARNING
• Pfizer
• Volcano World
• AOL's AIM
• Works of Shakespeare
• mIRC download

To name a but a few of the results that are clearly not directly related to HTML. Looks like their algorithm favours the .html extension.

Face it: Google may be !evil but the days of them being good at what they do have passed.

I suspect, like a lot of people, _if_ the MS search engine (/ next search engine along) can do any better I'll start using it.

Huh?

[wombatmobile]

.

So... you voted for Bush-Cheney eh?

Hello?? I say Bill Gates invented the universe and Bill Gates is great and people here think I'm speaking sincerely??

Strange place, this here, today.

Ready for prime time? Of course not.

[bluephone]

Of course it won't be ready in two months, but that's never stopped MS before. That's not their way. Their mantra isn't "when it's done" but "release early and often", and then eventually get it right. By releasing early, however, they get users too lazy to unknowledgable to switch later.

home grown search results too?

[Anonymous Coward]

Will this be one of those special search engines that only companies can list in and when you search for linux you get "buy windows today"..

Webcrawlers !

[Nom du Keyboard]

...will introduce a homegrown web crawler

How long before so many webcrawlers become the dominate form of Internet congestion?

Google Desktop

[Mistah Blue]

Privacy concerns notwithstanding, and since I'm not using Google Desktop on a public machine I'm not very worried... why would I bother using MS's tool? I already have one that works quite well. I assume it will get better or I'll find a better one (e.g. PDF searching, integration with Firefox/Opera, etc.).

Homegrown?

[duckpoopy]

Who lives at Microsoft?

Re:Homegrown?

[whereiswaldo]

> Homegrown? Who lives at Microsoft?

I thought the terminology was kind of funny myself.

In other news, Microsoft is planning to go mainstream with its homegrown operating system, putting itself in direct competition with Linus Torvalds' basement creation, Linux.

Google needs to fire back

[crayz]

And I've said this before, but the best way to show MS they mean business would be to release a Google-branded version of Firefox. Link to it from the Google homepage. That would knock MS off its feet

Stolen code or quantum fluctuations?

[Anonymous Coward]

In 1999 when you searched on google for "more evil than satan himself" microsoft.com was returned. According to google it was due to "anomaly caused by quantum fluctuations in Web space" http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9911/15/search.e ngine.ms.idg/

Try to do the same search now on microsofts new site:
http://techpreview.search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=% 22more+evil+than+satan+himself%22

I wonder how microsoft will explain this...

BSOD

[spidergoat2]

Blue Search of Death? Well, it had to be said.

homegrown microsoft products..

[tasinet]

Am I the only one whose eyes popped out of their heads when they read "Microsoft" and "Homegrown" in the same sentence?

WTF? Slashdotted?!?

[grcumb]

"The MSN Search Technology Preview is currently unavailable. The site may be down for a short while due to scheduled maintenance. Please try again later."

And for those of us who didn't get it the first time:

"Den foreløbige teknologiversion af MSN Søg er ikke tilgængelig i øjeblikket. Webstedet kan være nede i en kort periode på grund af planlagt vedligeholdelse. Prøv igen senere."

This is a proud moment, people. You've slashdotted Microsoft. 8^)

Okay, okay, it probably really is scheduled maintenance. I mean, what better time to take the service offline than mid-afternoon on a Thursday?

*blink*

Technology Preview site

[Tanaraus]

I did this search on the Technology Preview site: DES algorithm c++ code. It came up with no results! Try any other search engine and you will come up with myriad results to this simple query.

Re:Related to Lookout

[GOF2]

Or integrated with MS Lookout which loks suspicously like Google Desktop

MSN search for "Best Search Engine"

[op12]

It's really quite good.

http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?FORM=SRCHWB&q=b est%20search%20engine

Well..

[firew0lfz]

The beast looks pretty good so far - I've played around with it and found the results to be very similiar to google.

Anyone want to give their own quick reviews of the site? Despite the fact that it's from microsoft, I admit it seems a decent enough engine.

It's a good engine!

[sydtsai]

MSN search

Anyone notice gioogle searches 8 billion now?

[jbx]

Up from 4 billion this morning!

www.google.com:

©2004 Google - Searching 8,058,044,651 web pages

MSDN

[Anonymous Coward]

Does that mean I'll be able to find something on msdn.microsoft.com without having to use google?

That'll be the day!

(not that I would like that to happen)

What harm to Google?

[museumpeace]

I was going to post the following article but I guess I should get up earlier. There was a lot of commentary in the press on how MS would impact Google's business. [Not much impact if you ask me]

2004.11.09: Will MS entry into web search engines hurt Google?
In her usual thorough fashion Cynthia Webb of the Washington Post has summarized the punditry concerning the impact Microsoft's pending search service will have on Google's business . The MS announcement of the service is expected tomorrow. Most of the analysis says MS has a weak product and miles to go to overtake Google...but thats the position they were in vs Netscape once upon a time. The /. story on Mozilla.org pondering addition of search tools to its arsenal should be considered in light of [and sheds a different light on ] development of Microsoft's plans.

Re:Microsoft's problem^H^H^H^H^H^H^ ripoff

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they *are* stealing from Google:
http://www.marketingshift.com/2004/11/mic rosoft-cr awling-google-results-for.cfm