Microsoft Takes Risk in Unveiling Early Version of Search Engine
Microsoft Corp.'s unusual decision to let the public see an early -- and somewhat flawed -- version of its new Internet search engine has made the company the subject of ridicule. But the software giant may have the last laugh.
Some search experts say the new search engine (at techpreview.search.msn.com), which was unveiled earlier this month and cost about $100 million to develop, is rudimentary, in some ways laughably so. By Microsoft's admission, the early version of the service falls short of engines from search leaders Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc.; MSN is still using Yahoo technology to provide search results at its main search page (search.msn.com).
But while Microsoft's decision to unveil the early, "beta" product to the masses is surprising, particularly for a company that is notoriously conscious of its image, analysts say the move could ultimately strengthen its position in the search market. Microsoft is using the test, which is scheduled to end Aug. 9, to gather thousands of feedback reports from users. Analysts say that will mean a stronger search engine when the service officially launches later this year.
SEARCH LEADERS
Share of searches conducted by U.S. Internet users in May:
Search engine Market share
Google Sites 36.8%
Yahoo Sites 26.6%
Microsoft Sites 14.5%
Time Warner Network 12.8%
All others 9.3%
Source: comScore qSearch
Search-results pages for the test engine contain numerous links and prompts for users to electronically submit comments. This approach brings two advantages, says Jupiter Research associate analyst Nate Elliott: It broadens the testing group, quickening the pace of improvements; and it is smart public relations.
"Having something where people can come in and give their feedback is going to give people a better chance to become familiar with the engine and make them feel like they have a stake in the engine," says Mr. Elliott.
Already, users have found plenty to comment on, with tens of thousands of queries each day and between 10% and 20% of them generating feedback, says Justin Osmer, a product manager for MSN.
Search experts say the engine has several notable drawbacks. It doesn't cluster results by Web site, meaning one site can dominate the results for a given search. For instance, in a search for "Costco," 11 of the top 15 results listed are pages from the wholesale retailer's Web site. Google and Yahoo, by contrast, offer one or two links from any given site, along with links to see more relevant pages from a particular site.
On a similar note, other search engines remove near-identical pages -- for instance, a wire-service article posted on multiple news sites -- but Microsoft's new service apparently hasn't yet, at least not in all cases. These identical sites can push down other sites from search-results pages.
Another problem: Many results include high rankings for "search spam," or Web pages designed to game search engines. Soon after the technology test started, some Web site owners boasted on message boards that pages they had built to manipulate Google's rankings -- but were unsuccessful -- had now catapulted to the top of Microsoft's rankings.
Danny Sullivan, editor of Jupitermedia's SearchEngineWatch.com, an industry-tracking site, says the results from Microsoft's new service have less search spam than other rudimentary search engines. But when the engine is released in final form, "Microsoft will immediately be a target" of search spammers, Mr. Sullivan says.
Meanwhile, Microsoft appears to be weighing relevancy factors -- such as content, titles and links from other Web sites -- differently than other search engines do. Google pioneered the practice of determining a site's relative value by examining how many other sites link to it, but such linking appears to be weighted less by Microsoft, says Kevin Lee, chief executive of New York search-marketing firm did-it.com. Mr. Lee says he tried the new search engine, but was unimpressed with the results. "I'm surprised they even released this to the public unless it's a false 'fake out' to lull the competition into thinking they have nothing to worry about," he says.
But others are more sanguine, noting that many of the problems can be fixed relatively easily. Greg Jarboe, who worked at Lotus Development Corp. when Microsoft seized the operating system market in the 1980s with early versions of Windows, says, "Microsoft may not get it right the first time, but they are relentless about getting the next version better and the next version to a point where they can leapfrog you." Mr. Jarboe is co-founder and president of SEO-PR, a search-engine consulting firm in Acton, Mass.
Microsoft has identified search as a top priority, though declines to disclose how much it is spending on the technology or how many people are working on search products. Still, the stakes are huge as search-related advertising has exploded in recent years, and is projected to top $2.5 billion this year. For now, Microsoft shows ads from Yahoo, which means it is sharing revenue with a rival. Analysts expect Microsoft to develop its own search marketplace, but it hasn't yet confirmed plans to do so.
A Yahoo spokeswoman didn't respond to a request for comment on Microsoft's new search engine, and a Google spokesman declined to comment.
To critics of the current engine, Microsoft's Mr. Osmer says, "What's available right now is the engine itself, with no bells and whistles and no special features, and a relatively small index of a billion pages of content. That will be ramped up significantly for our launch." By comparison, Google says it indexes more than four billion pages.
Microsoft has set a goal of launching the engine by the end of this year. Analysts expect the company to herald the debut with a heavy marketing campaign. While switching to a new search engine costs a user nothing, it could be difficult for Microsoft to overcome the loyalty users have already established to rival sites. "MSN's butterfly is going to have to be working overtime," says Fredrick Marckini, chief executive of search-marketing firm iProspect in Watertown, Mass.
The company may launch updated versions of its test technology for further feedback between Aug. 9 and the final launch, Mr. Osmer says. He declines to comment on specific features that would be included. Analysts speculate that the final engine may also prominently solicit feedback, and might include personalization features allowing users to customize results based on their preferences. Down the road, Microsoft is expected to incorporate search into a future version of its operating system, something its rivals are already moving to achieve through software add-ons.
微软推出预览版搜索引擎有何图谋？
微软(Microsoft Corp., MSFT)将尚有不足的预览版互联网搜索引擎公之于众，这一惊人之举不免贻笑大方，但这家软件巨头可能笑到最后。
部分搜索专家称，7月初推出的耗资大约1亿美元开发的新搜索引擎(techpreview.search.msn.com)还很初级，某些地方的确可笑。微软也承认，搜索引擎的预览版仍落后于业内领先公司Google Inc.和雅虎(Yahoo Inc., YHOO)；微软的MSN也仍在使用雅虎的技术在其主搜索页面(search.msn.com)中提供搜索结果。
尽管对微软这家非常注重形象的公司而言，决定向大众推出预览测试版产品的举动令人惊讶，但分析师称，这最终会加强它在搜索市场中的地位。微软可以利用这次测试收集用户的数千条反馈意见，这次测试定于8月9日结束。分析师称，这意味著今年晚些时候微软正式推出新版搜索引擎时，其功能将更为强大。
测试引擎的搜索结果页面含有大量链接和提示，便于用户提交电子表格发表评论。Jupiter Research的助理分析师纳特?埃利奥特(Nate Elliott)说，这样做有两个优点：扩大了测试队伍，加快了改进步伐；同时也是一种非常明智的公共关系举措。
埃利奥特说，让人们参与进来并提供反馈意见可以使他们更熟悉这项产品，让用户感到自己也是其中的一员。
MSN的产品经理贾斯廷?奥斯默(Justin Osmer)说，用户们发表了很多意见，在每天数以万计的查询中，大约有10%-20%都给予了反馈。
搜索专家说，微软的搜索引擎有几个明显的不足。它不能根据网站进行归类，这意味著某个搜索结果可能都为一个站点所占据。比如，搜索“Costco”时，最前面15个结果中的11个都来自这家批发零售商的网站。而Google和雅虎对某个具体网站只提供一至两条链接，这样就可看到来自其他网站的更多相关链接。
类似的情况还有，其他搜索引擎去掉了几乎一致的页面，比如，某篇关于有线服务的文章在许多新闻站点刊登，但微软的新服务明显还没有，至少是没有完全去掉一致的页面。这些雷同的网站会将搜索结果中的其他网站挤到了下面。
另一个问题是：许多结果包括了排名居前的“搜索垃圾”，即欺骗搜索引擎的作弊网页。微软测试开始后不久，部分网站所有者就在讯息版上吹嘘，他们试图操纵Google排名（但未能成功）的网页现在排到了微软搜索引擎的前面。
Jupitermedia旗下业界追踪网站SearchEngineWatch.com的编辑丹尼?沙利文(Danny Sullivan)说，微软搜索结果中出现的搜索垃圾比其他初级搜索引擎要少。但沙利文说，当正式产品最终发布时，微软将立刻成为搜索垃圾制造者的目标。
此外，微软对关联因素，如内容、标题和来自其他网站的链接等因素的考虑与其他搜索引擎不同。纽约搜索营销机构did-it.com的首席执行长凯文?李(Kevin Lee)说，Google开创了通过检查一个网站有多少来自其他网站的链接来判断其相对价值的先河，但微软似乎并不特别重视此类链接。李说，他试过这种新的搜索引擎，但没留下深刻印象。他说：“我很惊讶他们会在目前的情况下向公众发布，除非这是一个让竞争对手丧失警惕的假象。”
但其他人却更为乐观，他们认为许多问题都比较容易解决。格雷格?雅尔博(Greg Jarboe)说，微软在第一次做得可能并不好，但他们下一个版本就会做得更好，然后再一个版本就会超过你。当微软二十世纪八十年代用预览版Windows抢夺操作系统市场时，雅尔博正在Lotus Development Corp.工作。他现在是马萨诸塞州搜索引擎咨询机构SEO-PR的共同创建人及总裁。
微软已经将搜索作为最优先的工作之一，但拒绝透露技术支出有多少，或有多少人在开发搜索产品。而搜索相关广告近年来一直迅猛发展，今年可望超过25亿美元，表明这是一个巨大的市场。目前，微软刊登来自雅虎的广告，这意味著它与竞争对手分享收入。分析师预计微软会开发自己的搜索市场，但该公司尚未证实此类计划。
雅虎的发言人没有回应记者提出的对微软新搜索引擎发表评论的要求，Google发言人对此不予置评。
微软的奥斯默对目前的引擎提出了批评。他说，现在使用的都是搜索引擎本身，没有什么高级特性和个性，而且只搜索很少的10亿页内容索引。他表示，在微软推出的产品中，这些都将大大改善。而Google表示，其备查索引超过40亿页。
微软的目标是在今年年底前推出搜索引擎。分析师预计，微软将用一系列大张旗鼓的营销活动首次推出自己的搜索产品。尽管用户转用新的搜索引擎不费分毫，但微软可能很难动摇已经习惯于其竞争对手网站的忠诚用户。马萨诸塞州搜索营销机构iProspect的首席执行长弗雷德里克?马克依尼(Fredrick Marckini)说，微软将要付出很大的努力。
奥斯默说，微软可能会在8月9日测试结束至最终发布日之间推出新的技术测试版本，以获得进一步的反馈意见。他拒绝透露将加入到其中的具体特性。分析师猜测，最终的搜索引擎也将会积极收集反馈，并可能加入个性化的特性，使用户可以根据自己的喜好定制搜索结果。今后，预计微软将把搜索技术加入到未来的操作系统中，而它的竞争对手正在采取行动通过软件插件的形式实现这一点。
