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The MSN search engine
MSN
- a look at this search engine
MSN is the only company apart from Yahoo with the money and resources to challenge Google for the top place in the search engine wars. So far, despite having the advantage of the most widely used browser, MSN has not been able to dislodge Google. In fact, the latest percentages of the search engine market are Google 49.2%, Yahoo 23.8%, MSN 9.6%, AOL 6.3%, Ask 2.6% and others 8.5%. So how does the third placed MSN measure up in web search? Actually, the MSN site is more of a portal, designed to hold a visitor within its pages, rather than send you off elsewhere. Visitors looking to search will probably be put off by the flashing images and the impression that everything possible is thrown onto the page - news, a directory, shopping, video highlights, entertainment news, weather, and services like trave, finances and fantasy football. In fairness, you are able to add content like horoscopes, Encarta or local news to make the page more personal. (You can have a more Google-like simple search experience at Microsoft's Windows Live.) One interesting feature is MSN's 'Popular searches', so we've tested a few of these below. MSN allows you to search the web, images, news, maps, video, academic sites, feeds and products. They also have QnA, where you can search on a term or question and see user answers and comments. While this is an interesting idea, it suffers from the failing of all newsgroups, blogs and feeds created by ordinary web users - most of the resulting content is ungrammatical, uninteresting or simply puerile. You can access their search from MSN or from their Windows Live site.
1. Commercial product - digital cameras There is no doublt the results here are impressive. The pure results are a mixture of electronics home pages such as Panasonic, product review sites and informational pages, while the sponsored results at top and right are right on target. In addition, the suggested 'related searches' are very useful, while some products names and prices are suggested too. Unlike most engines, MSN gives the date with each listing (presumably the date the page was last retrieved by the spider). However, this useful feature is not present consistently.
2. Commercial product actual model - a product brand + model name We used Sony Cybershot for the test. Apart from the ridiculous and annoying eBay sponsored link (Looking for Cybershot Sony?) which we have noted on other search engines, the results are generally good, with reviews, stores and the relevant Sony company pages listed.
3. Commercial purchase - buy CDs Things go astray a little here - snippets extracted from target pages are either missing (would you visit a link with no other information except 'George Duke Enterprise' and the URL, for this search?) or they are simply meaningless word strings (Books Popular Music Music Downloads Classical Music DVD Video Downloads VHS Apparel). The sponsored links are all relevant though.
4. Entertainment - Naomi Campbell This gives good results for the famous fashion model, though the sponsored results feature some unlikely matches - 'Campbell Naomi! at shopzilla', 'Campbell Hotels', and 'find any unlisted number for $7.95'. Naomi's number perhaps? But would she date me?
5. Entertainment - games cheats None of the sponsored results are even close to offering games cheats here; however the pure results and the suggested related searches are on the mark.
6. Precise requirement - Berkeley sociology The results give the required web page, and the phone number of the department.
7. Precise requirement - Dublin Ireland hotel Almost everything listed on the results page, sponsored or pure, is exactly relevant to the search. Some of the snippets are ludicrous though.
8. Precise / Travel - New York London airfare Gives mostly accurate results featuring agents and travel services.
9. Research - asthma information The pure results are fine, but the some of the sponsored results are hilarious - 'Asthma - free access to 14 million magazines', 'Asthma - Compare Prices and Save'. We're not making this up.
10. Research - Iraq maps Again, the pure search results are useful and worth exploring, while the sponsored results seem to be pulled in based on 'any term' and are mostly irrelevant to Iraq.
11. Searching - Dogpile.com Gives an accurate set of results.
12. Searching - Ask Jeeves Again gives the results you need.
Summary: MSN's web search may not be its primary feature, but it is still an excellent search engine, particularly for commercial products. It has a good set of customization options, and the Live Search slider function allows you to weight your results by time of last update, popularity or exactness. If you have never used anything but Google, give this a try out.
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