MSN Finally Unveils Its Own Search Engine

Date Published: Feb 3rd, 2005

For those that are not too familiar with MSN and where it pulled results from, might be thinking they have always had their own search engine. Well, that is partly true. You could always go to MSN and do a search. But the big difference is now, they are pulling results from their own database that their MSNbot (search engine spider) crawled and indexed. MSN before typically was getting results from Yahoo's database recently.

The top 3 Search Engines (with actual different databases!)

The top three search engines (in no particular order) are Yahoo, Google, and MSN. This is a great move for MSN as they want to take on Yahoo and Google head on in the search engine game. This will also prove in the months and years to come to (hopefully) be a good thing.

It is always tiring going to a search engine that does not display hardly any different results from another. Its like if you went shopping to a store, and out of the top 6 clothing stores in town, 4 of them had the exact same stock and prices. This is not the diversity that we all want to see when we go shopping, and this is not the diversity that we want to see online either. So its about time that MSN has launched their new search engine.

MSN's New Search Builder Features

For the person that likes to take advantage of the advance search features, they will surely like playing with the new search builder.

• Site/domain, this is for searching a specific website (url) for a search query.
• Links to, this like other search engines, checks the actual number of links that MSN has found to be linking to a certain site.
• Country/Region, this will help with local/regional search.
• Results Ranking option (With this, you have three options to future explore)
  • the first being Updated recently
  • second is Very Poplar
  • and third is Approximate match.

  With each Results Ranking option, there is an equalizer slider that you can move to determine how much weight you want placed on the search option.

The search builder feature makes it easier for the user to take advantage of the advance search options and hopefully find their desired results faster. The Results Ranking option is probably the coolest new feature added that you may want to test out.

MSN & Yahoo Personalized Pages and RSS/XML Feeds

With RSS/XML feeds gaining in popularity, MSN now has the option of where you can add your favorite news sources to your own personalized page. I myself use Yahoo's personalized page. I take advantage of my favorite news sources that I like to check everyday, and the links that I like to visit more often. Out of the two, I am still partial to Yahoo, but this is a good move on MSN's part. I like having the option of being able to go to another major player (with their own search engine) and still being able to have a personalized page.

Overall, this is going to be good for searchers and people marketing their websites, as there will be diversified results amongst the top 3 search engines, and hopefully you will find what you are looking for just a tad bit faster.

Gerard Manning
Search Engine Placement Specialist
Search Engine Marketing Agency :: Manning Search Marketing