| |
|
|
| Webmaster Resources: Search Engine Optimization Information | |
|
|
|
New MSN Search Engine: How Good is it?
If you have an online business or you just use Internet as one of your marketing tools, you know that how important are the search engines in your quest to get more targeted visitors to your website. The changes in search engine field can have unexpected outcome for your online endeavors. That's why it is important to be well-informed on impending progress in this sphere. Microsoft has recently come out with the latest beta version of its much touted search engine. Supported by 5 billion indexed pages, it is poised to become one of the most powerful search engines in the market. Right now MSN is using Yahoo provided search results for queries done through its search page, which it's planning to change somewhere in early next year with its own. You can check out the search engine at http://beta.search.msn.com . Google's immense success and profitable business model enticed Microsoft and others to look into lucrative search engine market seriously. Amazon, for example, has recently launched its web search site A9.com. Today, Google carries out almost 50 percent of all searches on the Internet. Yahoo with 24 percent of the market share is trailing in a distant second place. MSN with 14 percent lags far behind from the competitors - a situation, which won't be very easy to change. However, Microsoft has a long history of copying booming products; make their replicas some times, arguably, better then the originals, and clinch larger portion of the market shares. Microsoft has successfully done this to Borland's dominance of programming languages in the early days. The list of victims continued with once utterly popular word processor -WordPerfect, market dominant spreadsheet - Lotus 1-2-3, Novell's Netware and finally Netscape. Since 90 percents of all personal computers run on Windows, Microsoft gets an extra edge against its competitors, which it's capable of exploiting very effectively. What is new in MSN search? This version of MSN search incorporated several interesting features, which other search engines are lacking at this moment. Direct answers to plain language factual searches Unlike Google or Yahoo, Askjeeves has better ability to find answers to direct plain language searches. MSN search has taken this one step further by adding Microsoft's Encarta reference tools to its features. Ask, what is the capital of Russia? You will get the right answer at the beginning of the result page. Questions like "What is the size of a Blue whale?" also brings in exact answer. No doubt, students will love this feature as it makes a lot easier for them to get specific answers to the questions related to facts and figures. Near me Microsoft's new search engine includes a ''near me'' button that helps users find websites for a given location. In this release, this works only in United States. Once you press this button MSN search figures out where are you located using your computer's IP address. However, this can be easily superseded by changing setting preferences. This is important if you are located in New York and looking for something near Boston. Search Builder In other search engines, if you would like to customize your search you have to use advance search options from a separate page. MSN search has made it a lot easier for average users by adding the ability of customization right on the search box. Once you click on the Search Builder from the link right underneath of the search box a drop down menu will open. Initially, the menu might look a little confusing; with little patience you will be able to use available great features easily. The tool "search terms" allows you to add Boolean search options. Site/ Domain tool is used for limiting a search to specific site or domain, or excluding them from your query. "Links to" tool helps you make your query within the sites linked to a specific site. Country/ region and language options are required to make geography or language specific searches. The best option from this group of features is the "Result Ranking". This option allows you to refine searches and give you a better control over the search result by using a set of three bars. By sliding the bars up and down you choose whether you want to see more of exact match or approximate match, more popular or less popular, static or dynamic pages as search results. You can generate an impressive range of results for a single query thanks to this option. This could be very useful for some types of searches. For example: if you are looking for news based pages, you might prefer to choose more dynamic pages rather than static ones. Preference setting Most notable options on the setting page are "Safe Search" - ability to filter out sexually explicit images and texts, and ability to fix the number of results displayed from one particular site. Relevancy Many reviewers claim that if you compare the search results with Google, MSN search engine "falls short" in relevancy. However, my results showed otherwise. I ran a search on the phrase "trade leads". The results from both the search engines were very relevant. The only difference in MSN I noticed is our http://trade-leads.rusbiz.com managed to turn up on the first page. But, a search on the word "e-catalog" was brought better - more relevant - results on MSN then Google. This time too I was happy to see http://e-catalog.rusbiz.com on the first page of MSN search results. Conclusion If you consider all the new features of MSN that Google does not have yet, its ability to cover natural language queries, quality level and relevance of results, ability to refine searches, there is no doubt that MSN search engine is as good as Google. Nowshade Kabir is the founder, primary developer and present CEO of Rusbiz.com. A Ph. D. in Information Technology, he has wide experience in Business Consulting, International Trade and Web Marketing. Rusbiz is a Global B2B Emarketplace with solutions to start and run online business. You can contact him at mailto:nowshade[at]rusbiz.com
Add to these social bookmarking sites: 
MORE RESOURCES:
Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Professional SEO: Hand Off to Bob or Outsource the Job We are often asked if professional SEO (search engine optimization) can be done effectively utilizing in-house talent. Despite our obvious self-interests on the subject, our answer is always a qualified "yes"- you can achieve professional SEO results using existing talent. All About Links -- Interview With Link Building Expert , Bob Gladstein Julia: Welcome Bob. Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions about link building. Beyond the Box with Googles Web API Google, the most popular, and many say best, search engine, offers searchers many options to help them zero in on just what they're looking for. Although these search modifier features are documented on own site, many searchers, including experienced marketers and technically savvy people, simple don't know these features are available. 1 Simple SEO Strategy To Get More Visitors To Your Site From Google Did you know that you can dramatically increase the number of visitors that come to your site on a daily basis from Google? And it's not constantly improving your position in Google search engine result pages(SERPs) for your competitive keywords which can take some time after working on your search engine marketing campaigns.I take this example from Google because I've experienced it some time back now. Lets Make Your Website #1 Their is simple way of making your website rank top and search optimized.Step 1. Top 10 Little Used SEO Strategies There are millions of web sites trying to get listed in the top 20 to 30 spots on the major search engines. That's a lot of competition! So if you're having a hard time getting those spots, maybe you should try some little used but effective seo strategies to get those prized listings. 10 Quick Ways To Kick-Start Your Profit Pulling Keywords First, you must realize that targeting the right keywords or phrases is the 'key' to making any kind of profit from your site. Choosing the 'right' keywords (the exact keyword or phrase surfers type into the search engines to find your site or product) can make or break your online venture. Are Search Engines Worth It Any More? The "Number One" Question - the question that I (and probably every other Internet marketing expert on the planet) am most frequently asked: "How do I get to be Number One in the search engines for widgets? After all, my company is the world's leading provider of widgets - it's ridiculous that these other nobody companies are coming up in search engines ahead of us . . Google Patent Application - User Data As Part of Ranking Process In this third article, we continue to dig into the patent application of Google regarding the method used to rank sites in search results. Interestingly, Google asserts in the application that it "might" consider user data as a factor in organizing search results. Dont Submit Your Website To Any Search Engines We all want to get our websites high up in the search enignes but how do you do it? One thing you shouldn't bother doing is submit your site to any search engines. Not Google, not Yahoo!, not AltaVista. Search Engine Optimization Tip: Dont Buy Anything Before You Learn More! Thinking about purchasing that premium SEO software that will hyper-optimize a website in under 2 minutes and 2 seconds?Ask the following question first: What do I know about SEO?If the answer is "nothing", then don't buy it.Marketers are banking on the lack of knowledge among consumers. Search Engine Optimisation - Why And How To Do It In the following article I will give you some basic guidelines to follow in order to help get your web site ranked at the top of popular organic search engines. More detailed information can be found in our DIY Internet Marketing Guide "Start at the Beginning" Click here for an excerpt: http://www. LSI and Link Popularity When Paypal's official Web site no longer ranked #1 in Google on a search for "paypal," it was obvious that Google had become more aggressive in penalizing sites with "unnatural" backlink anchor text. Although the high-profile Paypal example has since been rectified, thousands of webmasters are suffering the consequences of not ranking for even their official company name, let alone their top keywords. Banned from Google and Wondering Why? There are those that get on the computer one night and find that all of their Web pages have disappeared from Google. While, others are still in the search engine index, but don't rank high for nothing, not even for their Web site's name. How and When Should I Submit My Website to Google? As soon as you register your domain name, submit it to Google! Even if you haven't built your site, or written an copy, or even thought about your content, submit your domain name to Google. In fact, even if you haven't fully articulated your business plan and marketing plan, submit your domain name to Google. Keyword Research And Overture Many of us who build websites get in the habit of using the Overture "Keyword Suggestion Tool" to do keyword research. It's convenient, and one of the few remaining such tools that is free. Have You Heard Of Website Optimization Have you heard of website optimization ? If you are building a website or have a new one and you have never heard of it, then you had better take note, because if you want to climb the ladder on the search engines it is something you need to learn about. Website optimization means optimising your website so the search engine spiders will love it. Opinion - Search Engine Success This article is actually the summary to a book soon to be released by the author, titled "Guaranteed Website Success". Opinions are quite often controversial. Yahoo Listing Still Worth It? In October 2002, the Yahoo! portal changed the way it delivers search results. In the past, the most prominent results were exclusively culled from websites listed in the Yahoo directory itself. Google Page Rank Is Dead - Or Is It? - Part I For a long time now, marketing gurus all over the world have been talking about google page ranking. Page ranking is simply Google's way of measuring your pages accordingly.
|
| Home | Site Map |
|
| © 2008 | |
