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  Microsoft's Live Search overhaul is, to understate it, aggressive, and their presentation of it dazzling to the point of euphoric. Their aim: To reclaim territory thought by some to be irretrievably lost to Google. And they believe they've done it, at least technologically. All that remains to be seen is if the searching public will respond. And that's a big if. Editor's note: So what do you think? Is this it? Is this the year Microsoft steps up to the plate and really challenges Google in the search space? The Beast of Redmond has been roaring for some time now without following through on its threat. Can the searching public be won over? Let us know in the comments section. Nevertheless, Microsoft is throwing next-generation technology terms around as though the public is ready to hear them: Live Search algorithms use neural networking ranking, modeled after biological neural networks, capable of learning and differentiating between natural language patterns. Now's the time to take the Blue Pill, if you have one. However they've gone about it, Satya Nadella, Corporate Vice President for Search and Advertising, says they've matched Google in relevancy and have surpassed Yahoo. Relevancy, it just so happens, accounted for 91 percent of user dissatisfaction, so it made sense to focus on that the most. They did so by looking at the searcher behavior patterns and user feedback, and used that information to structure the results so that they were better tailored to those patterns. The biggest expansion in the results comes in four categories, where 40 percent of all searches lie: Entertainment; Shopping; Health; and Local.
They divided search sessions into three main types:
Local proves to be a huge area for expansion in search, and it looks like the search engines are really looking to beef that part of the experience up. Yesterday, Microsoft also announced a major deal to serve local advertising to the Associated Press's 1,800 local online video affiliates. In addition, Microsoft plans to release "Live Search Webmaster Portal" into public beta later this year, a resource center similar to Google's Webmaster Central and Yahoo's Site Explorer. As to whether this is, finally, the true competition that has been awaiting Google, well…time will tell if the public raises as much fanfare as Microsoft has. Our own Doug Caverly is thus far unimpressed; others just echo what we already know – they'll have to prove it. And hope Google doesn't do something crazy in the meantime.
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David A. Utter Editor | WebProNews Though the small and medium business (SMB) market has a handle on the importance of a website, nearly six out of ten are not actively doing search or other types of online marketing. Those who follow the search industry and actively market their Internet presence in a variety of ways may be surprised to learn that a lot of their fellow entrepreneurs don't do so. That's the determination Greg Sterling at Opus Research found in his study of current marketing trends among the SMB market. Of those respondents to the study's survey, 59 percent do not do online marketing. Continue Reading |
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