MSN Beta Search

[mtbot]

It seems that MSN Beta Search may provide original search results in the near future, according to yesterday's article at SearchEngineJournal.com:

"After long months of combing the web, and assisted by a large team of programers, the spider’s work is nearing completion...The New Beta Version is rumored to be delivering results from MSNBot, the new search engine developed by Microsoft (you may sometimes see Inktomi results during testing). The listings show no directory driven sites and are much cleaner..."

From Sunday's Miami Herald:
"Microsoft's search engine aims to provide a superior service by enabling users to personalise the service. It will replace Microsoft's current engine, underpinned by technology from Overture, owned by rival search operator Yahoo."

Interestingly, Bill Gates also mentioned personalization without giving any details as to what could be personalized when he briefly discussed the future of MSN Search on last Friday's Charlie Rose Show.

Thus far, the results at MSN's Beta Search seem to be exactly the same as MSN/Inktomi, minus Looksmart and Inktomi paid-for-inclusion results.

[DanThies]

So far, I haven't seen anything but Inktomi results within the "organic listings" on beta.search.msn.com. All I've been able to see is that they're experimenting with different layouts.

I have barely seen any activity out of the MSNbot, and we receive regular log file feedss from over 800 sites. If MSN is getting ready to launch a search engine, they should be crawling the web.

Until someone actually shows me *different* organic results on beta.search.msn.com vs. search.msn.com, I'm going to dismiss this latest report as just more hype, disseminated by uninformed media.

Just for kicks, I will also remind everyone that Windows 95 was press hype for a few years before they actually released it. So was Windows 97 (oops, I mean Windows 2000). "Longhorn" has an even longer history as vaporware.

[Mel]

Spot on Dan.

Vaporware is a nice term for software, perhaps we should coin a term like vaporsearch for things like the non-existant search engines of MSN (and maybe Amazons nonexistant engine too)

[ronniethedodger]

...perhaps we should coin a term like vaporsearch for things like the non-existant search engines of MSN (and maybe Amazons nonexistant engine too)

Good term Mel. I will go for that one. But if you are referring to the Alexa crawler (Amazon) it is around and gets into everything.

I have not seen any changes at MSN at all either. Maybe you need a Passport to get the beta results, eh? ;0)

[Mel]

Hi Ron

Yep I have also seen a lot of the msnbot but it only counts when the public can see it ;-))

[ronniethedodger]

Yea Mel....bout time to go out and kick some bot butt, eh? ;0)

I got to looking at my crack about having a Passport to see results in MSN search from their bots.

I was just talking about META tags earlier today with somebody, and one of those Front Page tags came up. Now I am beginning to wonder just what this bot is actually looking at along those terms.

[DanThies]

Don't get me wrong, guys - MSNbot is out in the wild, but IMO they aren't crawling far enough or fast enough to run a search engine from the data. Not even close.

I don't think a Passport is going to show you anything different - I'm logged into MSN right now and it looks the same.

[lorenbaker]

Probably best for Microsoft to go off and license a Gigablast index!

Not sure what's going to happen, but as a HUGE internet entity, any change in MSN search will be big.

Unless they bring back that LookSmart directory thingey.

[cbp]

http://www.forbes.com/technology/new...tr1306019.html

Microsoft Corp. said on Friday that a new engine for its MSN Search service will start up in July, another step in its plan to challenge Google Inc.'s pole position as the Web's top search destination.

CBP