Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2007/09/27/microsoft_unveils_major_update_to_live_search/
Microsoft: New Live Search 'as good as Google'
'And better than Yahoo!'
Posted in Software, 27th September 2007 09:56 GMT
Microsoft yesterday used its Silicon Valley outpost, just down the road from Google, to unveil a "major update" to the web's third most popular search engine. And, yes, it's only been a year since the last major update. Bill and the gang plan on re-launching Live Search every 12 months.
With this update, the company now claims that - on the whole - its core search engine is better than Yahoo!'s and on par with Google's.
"In 2005, when we started, we were way behind," said Satya Nadella, corporate vice president for Microsoft's search and advertising platform group. "But after this release, we feel that our slope of innovation is so good that we can claim that we're as good as Google."
Feel free to chuckle.
According to the company, the new engine indexes more than four times as many sites, it has a better understanding of user queries, and it's more likely to turn up relevant information. "Overall, we feel we've made a quantum jump on our core relevance," Nadella said.
At the same time, Microsoft has announced a bevy of new vertical engines that work in tandem with core search. These include a local search platform with more info about individual businesses, a shopping platform with more info about products, a health platform with more info about bodily functions, and an entertainment platform that tracks the worldwide popularity of Salma Hayek.
One search engineer told us these updates will be available to all US users by Monday - with the exception of the new local search engine. That will arrive in late October.
According to the latest numbers from research firm comScore Media Metrix, Live Search is the third most popular search engine in the US, handling only 11.3 per cent of all web queries. Compared to Google's 56.5 per cent, that's a pretty paltry number. But Microsoft is quick to point out that Live Search reaches more people than this would seem to indicate. In August, the site handled only 11.3 per cent of all searches, but it was visited by 37 per cent of all searchers - i.e. almost 70 million people.
From our perspective, this indicates that the company's existing search engine is a piece of junk. People go there, and then they quickly leave for another site. The Redmond outfit confirms that 46 per cent of its users are "not satisfied" with the current state of Live Search, with most complaining that search results aren't as "relevant" as they should be.
But Microsoft likes to look on the bright side of this less-than-Googlicious position. Since it already reaches such a large audience, the company says, it can quickly expand its overall market share simply by improving the quality of Live Search.
"All the things we've done [with the new update] are in response to specific feedback from our customers," said Brad Goldberg, general manager of Microsoft's search business group. "Almost 40 per cent of all searchers on the internet use Live Search every month, but...we only have an 11 per cent share. That's where the opportunity is. If we can do a better job of going out and delighting those customers and addressing their needs, I think we have a real opportunity to grow share."
We'll see about that.
On the surface, the new Live Search update is indeed a step forward. Microsoft gave a three hour dog-and-pony show at its Mountain View headquarters, and we now have private access to most of the new tools. But it's hard to tell how big that step is.
By expanding the Live Search index, Microsoft claims, the number of queries that return fewer than 10 results has been cut in half. Plus, the company says, its search results are "fresher", and it's better at finding user generated content. "Overall, the quality of the index is something that we paid a lot of attention to," Nadella said, "and we feel very, very good about the improvements."
Meanwhile, Nadella and his cohorts say they've improved the engine's ability to refine queries. Supposedly, it's much better at correcting spelling, analysing punctuation, and dealing with so-called "stop words". If you search on "The Office," for instance, Live Search now recognises the importance of the word "The" - so it knows you're looking for a television show, not a software package.
After less than an afternoon with the new engine, it's difficult to say just how effective it is, but time will tell. As it stands, we're most impressed by the new machine translation, which automatically translates foreign languages sites you might visit. You can view the original page and the translation page side-by-side, or you can simply mouse over a portion of text to view its translation. But at one point during our anecdotal testing, this tool quit working entirely.
Among the vertical search tools, we particularly like Microsoft's new video platform. Though it wouldn't mention the company by name, Microsoft has dumped AOL as its video partner and built a new engine from scratch.
The new platform gives you in-page previews of videos when you mouse over thumbnails, actually playing part of the clip, and in some cases it's smart enough to preview not just the beginning of a video, but "big moments" that come later on. By recognising camera flashes in a sports video, for instance, it can preview the big play. But again, during our spot tests, this didn't always work as advertised.
We can forgive Microsoft for a glitch or two. But we can't forgive its incessant claims that Live Search can now compete with the folks down the road. At one point, a Microsoftie bragged that the company's new celebrity tracking tool - Celebrity xRank - is updated twice as often as Google's. And Satya Nadella actually rolled out a bar chart that purported to prove Live Search is now just as good as its arch-rival. We'll let a few million web users be the judge of that.®