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Microsoft Lost Search War By Ignoring the Long Tail

Posted by Soulskill on from the i-wonder-if-it's-prehensile dept.

Art3x writes "When developing search engine technology, Microsoft focused on returning good results for popular queries but ignored the minor ones. 'It turned out the long tail was much more important,' said Bing's Yusuf Mehdi. 'One-third of queries that show up on Bing, it's the first time we've ever seen that query.' Yet the long tail is what makes most of Google's money. Microsoft is so far behind now that they won't crush Google, but they hope to live side by side, with Bing specializing in transactions like plane tickets, said Bing Director Stefan Weitz."

8 of 267 comments (clear)

  1. Re:frits psot? by Yvan256 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Nope, I'm sorry but you didn't get the frist post. On the other hand you did get the first post! Congratulations!

    Now be a good boy and go back to the main page to wait for the next article so you can try and be the first one to post something again.

  2. Re:Well, duh... by Yvan256 · · Score: 1, Funny

    So, Microsoft goes off and designs a brand new [tech], without even knowing how its customers use such a [tech]. Yes, that sounds like Microsoft.

    Microsoft, doing business by ignoring its own users for the last three decades!

  3. Sure by HangingChad · · Score: 5, Funny

    Microsoft is so far behind now that they won't crush Google, but they hope to live side by side...

    The same way the Zune lives side by side with the iPod.

    --
    That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
  4. Re:Same old by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 5, Funny

    I don't know how they could have not figured this out ahead of time. All they needed to do was search for how to build a great search engine and they would have gotten about 280,000,000 results.

  5. Re:Well, duh... by bunratty · · Score: 4, Funny

    I sincerely apologize. I'm a PC and Bing was my idea. Sorry!

    --
    What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
  6. Re:Well, duh... by Sir_Lewk · · Score: 4, Funny

    for years it told us the top queries were "google," "internet explorer" and "yahoo"; it was obvious this was a bug

    Maybe I'm being dense but... why? Those seem like very reasonable top searches for a search engine that something like Windows uses by default.

    --
    "linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
  7. Re:Same old by Matt+Perry · · Score: 2, Funny

    "We messed up" isn't really an excuse.

    You're right. It's the new Microsoft company slogan.

    --
    Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
  8. Re:Bing sucks by Bigjeff5 · · Score: 2, Funny

    I should have spent my keystrokes showing my contempt for others, I suppose that belongs at slashdot more than my anecdote.

    FINALLY, someone gets it!

    Oh wait, was that sarcasm? ;)

    --
    Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller