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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."

12 of 267 comments (clear)

  1. Same old by Mystery00 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Company releases an inferior product, much later to the game than competition, makes excuses for failure, water still wet.

    --
    "we've got trenchcoats and bad attitudes" - John Constantine, HellBlazer
    1. Re:Same old by nomadic · · Score: 3, Insightful

      makes excuses for failure

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

    2. Re:Same old by Runaway1956 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Personally, I won't touch bing. It generates money for Microsoft, who is willing to give me almost nothing for free. Their free products are tied to using their overly bloated over priced products.

      Google has given me a browser, they gave me a superior search engine years ahead of any competition, they offer me a free operating system, AND they host a boatload of code for free stuff for which I've never paid a dime.

      More, Google promotes the advancement of computer science, without trying to take possession of every line of code written to work with their offerings. None of that "embrace, extend, extinguish" nonsense.

      And, if all the rest doesn't impress you, Google has decided that they WILL NOT censor the web for 1/4 of the world's population, while Microsoft is quite happy to do so.

      If anyone is going to make money off of my searches, it will be Google, unless and until some other company steps up to offer me tons of free stuff, and to "Not be evil".

      I guess you could summarize my attitude as "Fuck Microsoft!"

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    3. Re:Same old by TheSpoom · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Microsoft is always late to the party. GUI, LANs, the internet, and now internet search.

      They figure they'll make up for it with superior marketing and product placement within their own software; don't underestimate the power that these things can have.

      --
      It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
      - E. Debs
    4. Re:Same old by Runaway1956 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Speaking of fanboys - maybe you missed the fact that MS OWNS every line of code they produce, and they OWN everything they research.

      On the other hand, Google gives away most of the stuff they write research. Google makes it possible to take their neatest stuff, modify it, and release it again.

      Granted, there are SOME things that Google won't open source. They have a few bread-and-butter things that they don't want to give away to their competition, which is understandable. But, for the advancement of computer science, almost everything they do is just thrown out there, and made available for anyone who has a "better idea".

      Try taking some MS code, and improving on it. IF MS approves of it, they will put their name on it, making it their own, then they will either use it, or drown it in the sea of obscurity surrounding Redmond.

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    5. Re:Same old by cduffy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Microsoft gives free search, browser, and email just like google

      If it's tied to a paid product (Windows), it ain't free.

    6. Re:Same old by icebraining · · Score: 3, Insightful

      IE is just as free as Chrome.

      No, IE is just a product you pay for when you buy the Windows bundle. Then you get free updates, like with other paid software.

      Chrome is the property of a monopoly trying to squash the only other search engine in use. What's the difference? It's a competitive market, and Google is doing the exact same thing to Bing that Microsoft is trying to do to Chrome. It's competition, and its healthiest when you have three or more competitors. The search market really only has two, and one of those is far more dominant than the other.

      Except IE won because it came bundled with the OS, in clear abuse of their monopoly, while Google Search "won" for itself.

      --
      Dilbert RSS feed
  2. Well, duh... by QuietLagoon · · Score: 4, Insightful
    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.'

    .

    Search engines are all about people looking to find stuff. A good portion of what people look for are probably new things that are happening now.

    So, Microsoft goes off and designs a brand new "bet the ranch" search engine, without even knowing how its customers use such a service. Yes, that sounds like Microsoft.

  3. It helps to be honest, as well by timholman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    'It turned out the long tail was much more important,' said Bing's Yusuf Mehdi.

    Someone should tell Medhi that it also helps when you don't game the search results to fit your corporate agenda.

    From time to time, I try out the following query on Bing: "Why is Windows so expensive?"

    The day that the first result returned is NOT a site about Macs being expensive is the day I'll start to take Bing seriously. Until then, I'm sticking with Google, which is at least honest enough to properly index anti-Google queries.

  4. Lost? by nurb432 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    As long as there are search engines and choices, the war isn't over. A war of unskilled attrition, ( like Microsoft plays ) can take a long time to end.

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  5. So they say by gilesjuk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I would say they lost by:

    1. Being too late. Search engines have been around for many years. You can't easily launch a search engine now without a massively improved user experience over what is already available.

    2. Not being trusted, I don't want to use Microsoft's search engine as it may subvert the results to promote their wares.

    3. Stupid name. Every time I hear "Bing" I think of Ned Ryserson from the film Groundhog Day.

    4. OTT interface, I don't need a big background when I'm looking for stuff.

  6. Re:They need to do something more radically differ by Fex303 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why not try to make a search engine that doesn't track what you do? I'd pay a subscription for such a thing.

    How would they keep track of who has subscribed if they're not tracking people?