Will people start using MSN instead of Google?

[kenecammcom]

Here is a breakdown of search engine referrals to my site over the last 7 days. Now bear in mind that our products have very little competition and we rank 1 or 2 on all these search engines when you search for relevant terms.

(http://www.ecamm.com)

Google (696)
Yahoo (88)
MSN (20)
Netscape (13)
Altavista (6)
Search.com (4)
AllTheWeb (4)
AOL (2)
Ask.com (1)
Earthlink (1)

Now what I get from this is that Google is enormously more popular than any other search engine.

I'll be interested to keep an eye on this chart to see if MSN starts moving up the ranks.

I just realized something... It could just be that Mac users always use Google. We do mostly Mac software.

[MathsIsFun]

Yes, kenecammcom, it is hard to draw conclusions from any one website.

I look after a handful of websites, and the results vary quite a lot. Usually Google dominates easily.

But I do have one website that gets more visitors from MSN at the moment - go figure.

[globalhostinggroup]

I have many sites and some are top yahoo and some top Google toping both is so much of a headache

You are optimizes more for Google
I have some sites that pull in like 2000+ yahoo
And MSN 1000+
Don’t forget Google 200+


Their was another thread witch had many examples of this I cannot remember witch one though.

[AGS]

I can only speak for myself, And in doing so I will say this. I currently own 10,000 plus domain names and operate a network of 500 or so sites. I am very pleased with MSN beta result rankings,

I typically dont spend much time on SE optimization Typically we create a site mainly in HTML we have some .asp .php and others but predominently HTML, Here is my take on it.

MSN beta results rank us (thinking of a term to use) Where every webmaster wishes to be At the top of our main keywords.

Google couldnt give a rats ass about our sites.

Yahoo again places us well but not in the foirst few pages.

Again we operate our own network so we have never been to focused on getting back links (I personally find they are crap). We mainly keep to ourselves and we average from all sites with all domains pointing to relevant sites around 100,000 visits per month. 60% of traffic is from SE's and if we continue to keep our positions in MSN beta we anticipate growth of at leats 20% per month. We will not lose anything from google or yahoo So why not focus on one SE? if MSN algoritm thinks our sites are worthy of top placement then it is my opinon that my company will focus and support MSN.

After all as I have mentioned in other threads that MSN may be behind google at this point but Microsoft is a very powerful opponent. With all thier resources and commitment to Search look out google. It wont be long before MSN offers a program similar to adsense as it only makes financial sense that they would do this and between the two companies they will make webmasters decide one or the other program.

After placing alot of time in meetings with my employees and others in the business I will focus my entities on MSN once they decide to launch publically. As it stands now we receive very little traffic from the BETA version. But we have checked and double checked every keyword or phrase that has ever been used to reach any of our sites from all search engine refferals from the last six months and in the beta version we will be very hard for our competitors to compete with. If the BETA were to be released today I think those we compete with would have no alternative but to either play catch up or decide to make some drastic changes to their own sites.

There is some reasoning behind why I would focus on this SE,

1. Its Microsoft
2. The inclusion of this SE in future OS releases
3. MSN has already been established
4. Bill dosnt like to lose
5. My sites rank well

[about2000]

I'm sure that msn search engine would replace google in next year and became leader of search engines. I found msn search resuld is more relavant than google. Many many good websites are not been listed at foregoing pages bacause of google bad arithmetic.

[clasione]

My personal prediction is this:

When Microsoft releases it's new search technology - people will swarm to the engine testing and trying there new serp listings.... Users that have a default homepage set with Microsoft will find themselves leaving MSN search less to find what their looking for - Novice users that usually leave to search with engines like hotbot, dogpile, askjeeves and such will start using MSN more often because the serps are much much better on their tech preview.... So there traffic and searches will be much more used - but - I do not see them overtaking Google -

Google has always been three steps ahead of every other engine -

I think MSN is taking a giant step forward - but I still think they will be one or two steps behind....

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by about2000

I'm sure that msn search engine would replace google in next year and became leader of search engines. I found msn search resuld is more relavant than google. Many many good websites are not been listed at foregoing pages bacause of google bad arithmetic.

"bad arithmetic"?

Your joking right?

I do agree I like the results of MSN Beta right now, but it doesn't mean Google has become useless. Google results are relevant (and will continue to be) in a different manner than MSN. Why should all search engines provide their results in the same manner? Isn't the idea of search engines to provide relevant results in the manner (algorithm) they choose? I still find good results with Google, my only grip with them is the obvious ranking prominence of "well known" websites over new or mom and pop websites competing for the same keywords.

[oagady]

I LOVE new MSN because my site is among the first 4 positions on ALL the keywords and phrases I target (unfortunately this is not the story with Yahoo and Google). However yesterday I had a programming question and decided to try new msn. The search didn't produce any helpful result. Again, I had to go to Google to get an answer.

Regarding technical staff Google is the best.

Olga

[cbp]

I just posted this in a related thread:

Some of my sites are higher in the new MSN than Google, and some are lower, so I am neutral on MSN from this respect.

However - for the last week when I have needed to search for anything unrelated to SEO or my sites (eg movie time; hotel etc) - I have deliberately used both Google and MSN (repeating the search). Conclusion: MSN is crap and has a long way to go to catch up to Google.

CBP

[sfowler]

The argument stated above that it will be set as default in new installations of Microsoft products should not be underestimated. The question is not so much, whether the results are fecal, but whether they are perceived to be so. If the results are halfway resonable, then you will see an increase in the amount of traffic MSN moves.
Just becouse on person is not getting traffic from a SE does not mean it can be ignored, it means that either your site ranks badly there, or your type of user tends to use a different engine. I suspect we will see an increase in the use of MSN by the lower age groups and the senior citizens, who start to use a computer at a later age and do not wish to mess around with settings.

It is partly a question of user group, and our work in this direction. Which xountry are you targetting? This is an international forum, so the numbers will be different for all of us. Who is going to dominate the Chinese market? Google? MSN? Baidu? or the newcomer, Acoona? I have not seen their spider yet, but the search is up and the names behind them are impressive.

[jvmills]

Just read today that previews of the MSN messenger 7.0 have an MSN web search box embedded, same article also stated that Microsoft were looking to include MSN websearch in future desktops...

read it here: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/busine...otebook13.html

[jvmills]

Just read today that previews of the MSN messenger 7.0 have an MSN web search box embedded, same article also stated that Microsoft were looking to include MSN websearch in future desktops...

read it here: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/busine...otebook13.html

[OneMoreBite]

Originally Posted by jvmills

... previews of the MSN messenger 7.0 have an MSN web search box embedded, same article also stated that Microsoft were looking to include MSN websearch in future desktops...

No surprise there. I don't know the numbers but many people use MSN.com for their e-mail and they'll always be using MSN search. It seems prudent to attempt decent listings in all the major players, and with the money MSN's got to spend, they ought to be able to make a good show of it. Time will tell.

Kathryn