WIll MSN be a threat to Google?

[mike]

Well all the buzz is about Microsoft today. Reportedly the brand spanking new MSN search engine will be going live tomorrow (Thursday Nov. 11) on the MSN home page. This story apparently lacks any official confirmation (at least any that I’ve been able to find) but such news outlets as Reuters and the New York Times quoting anonymous sources have picked it up.

If you’re Google are you worried about it? Can Microsoft bring something to the search arena to steal some of Google’s thunder? Yahoo sure has made a game effort of it… but I’m not sure they’ve really succeeded (to any great extent) as far as converting Google people into Yahoo people. I guess we’ll see soon enough.

[olga_k]

MSNBC announced MSN Search Preview - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6447048/. What's unclear to me is whether it will actually replace the current search results, or become another beta somewhere in the techpreview section.

~Olga

[randfish]

I hope Google is worried. MS is powerful, has the money to build fast and smart, and has eaten upstarts like Google in the past...

They would be very foolish to assume dominance, although they have a big advantage in terms of PR and public opinion.

[Shift4SMS]

I don't know if it will be a threat or not. In a way, I hope it does because I'm tired of the All Google All The Time newletter. I understand that Google is currently the biggest search engine on the web but come on. Can anyone remember the last WebProWorld newsletter that did not highlight a Google thread?

[LinkMaster]

Is this the sneak preview URL below?

http://techpreview.search.msn.com/

[PikoTech]

Is this the sneak preview URL below?

http://techpreview.search.msn.com/

Yes, LinkMaster.. Although curiously it seems to be redirecting to the dutch version (and domain) again like it was earlier this morning.

I wonder what they are playing at.. I'm in the UK!

[greeneagle]

No "sneak" preview now!
It's here: http://beta.search.msn.com/
and I am much more impressed than by what I saw in "alpha"
Ken

[wednesday]

Microsoft is a hard player. We should expect everything.

[iamrussell]

I don't know about Google but I think MSN will definitely overtake Yahoo as the #2 search engine. Especially after Longhorn is launched.

[scallihan]

Did some tests, and my pages/keyphrases are showing up well, somewhat parallel to how I'm doing in Google. Much better than how I'm doing in Yahoo Search. Looks to me that MSN Search may be trying their tried and true method on Google that gobbled up WordPerfect and Netscape in the past -- embrace and extend.

The ideal situation would be to not have just one dominant search engine, but ongoing competition between engines.

[anthonykane]

Bill Gates hasn't missed yet. He has a tremendous amount of resources and he also has an advantage. Everyone who has Explorer will automatically has their browser set to MSN search. If you want to use Google you are going have to change it yourself. If Microsoft can give acceptable results, most people are not going to bother.

[John Currie]

Well I for one simply cannot wait for MSN search to be implemented live! I have been following the different beta versions of MSN search with much interest.

My website's all seem to do well in the MSN SERPS and this is solely due to good SEO tactics and lots of relevant content.

I believe that if one follows the rules and provides lot of good, fresh content your website will do well in all the SE's.

Lets hope that MSN Search will at least give us a few good years of predictable results in the SERPS when designing websites.

Remember when the same could be said for G????

[John Currie]

Well I for one simply cannot wait for MSN search to be implemented live! I have been following the different beta versions of MSN search with much interest.

My website's all seem to do well in the MSN SERPS and this is solely due to good SEO tactics and lots of relevant content.

I believe that if one follows the rules and provides lot of good, fresh content your website will do well in all the SE's.

Lets hope that MSN Search will at least give us a few good years of predictable results in the SERPS when designing websites.

Remember when the same could be said for G????

[Nigel Lew]

I too am excited about msn search and have spent a good bit of time addressing it specifically. I don't have a enough research compiled to clearly state how exactly I did it but I put myself number one for about 10 different search terms for my area....

Thus far it seems to lean more towards how you would list on yahoo yet it shows a more google like return in most situations. It does in fact seem to prefer proper markup also.. I left some pages a mess for a month or so to attempt to gauge how much if any impact this may have had.
Msn bot seems to always be in my sites lately...

Nigel

[imran]

i think msn is a theat to google in the future