April 30, 2009

Microsoft Live Blog Starts SEM Instruction

The people over at the Microsoft Live Search blog have started a series of SEM posts intended to help train people.

The SEM 101 posts are intended "to help folks who suddenly find themselves responsible for promoting their organization's website. I've seen many visitors in the forums who ask basic questions, so I know there is an audience for this line of articles. I personally know many folks in my life outside work (there is such a thing, right?) who manage websites for their businesses but know little-to-nothing of SEM."

I will be keeping an eye on how these posts develop and what level of information is shared. It is always interesting to watch the keeper of the algorithm help people improve there position in the results without tipping their hands to the factors influencing the algorithm.

Posted by Frank Watson at 10:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 24, 2008

Microsoft to Announce Second Quarter Earnings January 22, 2009

Microsoft will announce second quarter earnings (their fiscal year begins July 1) on January 22, 2009.

A live webcast will be available at 2:30pm PST at http://www.microsoft.com/msft.

It will be interesting to see if anything is said about Cashback and its affect on Live Search. In November came word that the program was working. But a glitch on Black Friday turned some Cashback customers sour.

Still, the program expanded to offer instant Cashback on eBay purchases made via PayPal.

Of course, Microsoft is much more than a search company, but with recent hires coming into the company from Yahoo, we'll be looking for any statements made about search during the call.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 24, 2008

Is Live Search Renaming A Miva Move?

Seems Microsoft is moving to finalize the renaming of Live Search to Kumo, according to LiveSide.net. The possibility has been discussed at various times this year.

Renaming and branding moves by search engines have not had much luck. Ask.coms removal of Jeeves seemed to hurt them, FindWhat and eSpotting merger and rename to Miva definitely impacted the companies, so there is data for not making the changes.

True GoClick to Overture went okay - but then they had a great product in a growing market - just like BackRub and Google.... but that was really prepublic launch.

If the move goes through will be well worth tracking.

Posted by Frank Watson at 12:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

July 25, 2008

Microsoft's BrowseRank Aims for Better Results than PageRank

While Google is busy rolling out a PageRank update, Microsoft is researching what they hope will be the next big thing in search: BrowseRank. The technology takes user browsing habits into account when determining relevant search results. We propose computing page importance by using a 'user browsing graph' created from user behavior data. In this graph, vertices represent pages and directed edges represent transitions between pages in the users' web browsing history. Furthermore, the lengths of staying time spent on the pages by users are also included. The user browsing graph is more reliable than the link graph for inferring page importance.

You can read the full paper by Microsoft Asia researchers here (pdf).

Earlier, we reported that Steve Ballmer says that search needs innovation. Will BrowseRank achieve that goal? Let us know what you think by leaving a comment.

via CNET

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

June 17, 2008

Microsoft to Build Search Technology Center in Europe

Ever since the Yahoo! acquisition deal fell through, many have wondered what Microsoft will do to make headway in the search market. Shortly after, they launched Cashback, which seemed to indicate a dedication to build search internally. Then Bill Gates said that one of his post-retirement projects would be seach. Today, Microsoft is showing its commitment to developing Live Search with an announcement to build a Search Technology Center in Europe.

"Today Microsoft has 68 percent reach to Internet users throughout Europe through our online assets and strengths in display advertising; however, we're not yet where we'd like to be in search in this critical geography," said Kevin Johnson, president of the Platforms and Services Division at Microsoft. "Success in search in Europe is paramount, and we see the investment in this new Search Technology Center as an important step in doubling down on our long-term investments."

Though no city was named, Microsoft said the European center will be modeled after their Search Technology Center in Beijing. Additionally, engineers may work from multiple locations to contribute to the search technology efforts conducted at the European hub.

"Searchers have different expectations and experiences in every geography in the world, so we believe it is critical to make deep investments in physical locations in multiple markets to ensure that we're applying the best local expertise to our research and development efforts," said Satya Nadella, senior vice president of the Search, Portal and Advertising Group at Microsoft. "We're already doing some great work in Europe in the enterprise search space through our January 2008 acquisition of Fast Search & Transfer SA, and we're looking forward to opening the European Search Technology Center to further our investments."

What do you think about Microsoft's announcement? Do you think they have what it takes to develop a more robust search product? Leave a comment and let us know.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 8:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

June 13, 2008

Live Search Cashback Now Available for ebay "But It Now" Products

In an effort to boost its search game, Microsoft recently announced its Live Search Cashback program which rewards those who make purchases as a result of Live Search ads with cash rebates. Now, eBay is part of the program, but in a more streamlined way.

When searching for a product, you'll now see a cashback gleam next to eBay paid search ads. You'll be able to get cashback on "Buy It Now" products directly through eBay instead of going through the cashback site.

Live Search says that doing cashback this way requires some coding with partner merchants, but it hopes to offer more advertisers like this in the future.

What do you think of this new cashback offering? Has cashback changed the way you search? Share your experience in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

June 5, 2008

Live Search Displays Paragraph Under Wikipedia Results

Microsoft's Live Search is now displaying a portion of the first paragraph from Wikipedia results. On the Live Search Blog, Program Manager Kemp Peterson wrote, "We realize that often you just need to get a sense of what your query is about. Wikipedia is great for that — you can learn enough from the first paragraph of a Wikipedia article to start you out on the right path."

Take a look:

Wikipedia's traffic has grown 8,000% in the past 5 years due largely to search referrals.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 4, 2008

Microsoft to Work on Live Search Reputation

Kevin Johnson, Microsoft's president of platforms and services division, has said that the company will work to fix their search brand image, according to USA Today. Microsoft has a history of holding the third largest search market share. But with Google dominating roughly 60% of the market and Yahoo holding onto 20-ish%, third place is not exactly competitive.

So far in 2008, Microsoft has tarnished their brand image. Their failed Yahoo acquisition attempt brought attention to their lackluster search product. Still, Microsoft has made no secret of their desire to catch Google. Even Bill Gates is making search one of his post-retirement projects.

The focus of any future search success may lie in what Johnson called "commercial intent queries." These types of queries relate to those that end in a monetary transaction. Recently, a program was announced where searchers get cash back on products purchased as a result of searching on Live Search. Product search has been getting updates, including being added to Live Search for Mobile. Microsoft also relaunched travel search site Farecast, which it acquired earlier this year.

Johnson mentioned that the company would like to expand into another commercial intent niche: real estate.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 2, 2008

Microsoft Live Search Toolbar to be Shipped with 2009 HP PC's

Microsoft has announced a partnership with HP where the Live Search toolbar will be distributed on 2009 PCs. The toolbar will appear on consumer PCs shipped to customers in the U.S. and Canada. Additionally, the default search engine browser will also be set to Windows Live Search.

“This agreement with HP is a strategic indicator of our increased focus on securing broad-scale distribution for Live Search,” said Kevin Johnson, president of the Platforms & Services Division at Microsoft. “This is the most significant distribution deal for Live Search that Microsoft has ever done, and we are very pleased to be partnering with HP to help bring Live Search to millions of consumers across North America.”

“This agreement provides HP customers with an outstanding search product in Live Search, as well as a user-friendly, fully customizable way to access their favorite online services,” said Ulf Claesson, vice president of Worldwide Attach at HP. “Microsoft shares HP's passion for delivering world-class technology to consumers in meaningful ways, and today's announcement will help to provide an even more personal computing experience for HP customers.”

Do you think this will boost Microsoft's search market share? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

May 28, 2008

Gates: Microsoft will Build World's Best Search Engine

Last year, Bill Gates announced that his focus for his remaining full-time work at Microsoft would be search. But the job is not yet done and now he's announced that search will be a projects he will be involved with post-retirement (besides his Chairmanship). Buried in the stories about Windows 7 and its multitouch abilities is a statement from the software giant's founder about his vision for the future of Microsoft's search.

"I'm very involved in search, the internal development," he told the audience at the D6 conference. "We will build the world's best search."

Do you think Gates can pull it off? Discuss in the comments.

via BBC News

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

May 23, 2008

Microsoft Closing Live Search Books and Academic Projects

Microsoft has announced that they are closing their Live Search Books and Live Search Academic Projects. While they will still index books and scholarly publications in their primary search index, Microsoft's digitization initiatives will come to an end.

Libraries and publishers are encouraged to build digital archives utilizing the platform Microsoft built with Kirtas, the Internet Archive, CCS, and others.

Commenting on the future of the search business, Satya Nadella Senior vice president search, portal and advertising, wrote on the Live Search blog, "Given the evolution of the Web and our strategy, we believe the next generation of search is about the development of an underlying, sustainable business model for the search engine, consumer, and content partner."

What do you think about Microsoft's move to end their Live Search Books and Academic Projects? Let us know in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

May 1, 2008

Live Search Team Gives Insight into Product Search Updates

Recently, Microsoft updated the Product Search Experience, part of its Live Search offering. Now they're giving insight into the specific updates included, via the Live Search blog. The updates were based on feedback given by users of the feature while it was still in beta.

And the updates are (drum roll please)...

One stop to research product details and find good prices -- Results display an image and description for each product as well as reviews, prices and spec sheets.
Feature-based refinements -- View reviews based on features that are important to you (i.e battery life, portability)
Sorting -- Sort results by user ratings, expert ratings, and price.
Filtering -- Filter results by specific brands, categories, and price ranges.
Richer product details -- Read expert reviews and a spec sheet describing the product.

Product search has been seeing a lot of action, lately. Earlier this week, the Product feature was added to Live Search for mobile phones.

It's really no wonder that such an emphasis is played on these types of product searches and results. Searchers are increasingly wanting answers (as opposed to branding) and with the popularity of devices like the iPhone (which offers full HTML browsing), product searches for both the regular and mobile web are important to the consumer buying process.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:43 AM | Permalink

April 23, 2008

The team at Live Search as announced the addition of a deep links feature to its search results. Similar to Google's Sitelinks, the feature lists prominent internal links for the #1 result on certain searches.

I did a comparison of this feature for both Live Search and Yahoo. My first search is for the “State Department.”

As you can see, Live Search lists the deep links in a single column, indented underneath the home page of the State Department's website.

While Google lists more results in 2 columns, and offers a search within a search box underneath the Sitelinks.

Next, I did a search for Starbucks. Live Search listed a paid search link, followed by local listings and then served up the first organic results with deep links. It's pretty far down on the page, especially since the closest Starbucks to me is not one of the three local listings provided by Live Search. Also, it provides Related Searches on the Sidebar, one of which is a search for a link provided in the deep links. Google had a much more simple results page for Starbucks. The paid search ads are only on the sidebar and you get to the corporate Starbucks website right away. For the most part, Google seems to turn up more Sitelinks than Live Search. Also, Google provides Sitelinks for sites that Live Search doesn't. Searches for both “Search Engine Watch” and “Nike” both returned Sitelinks in Google but no deep links in Live Search.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:27 AM | Permalink

April 16, 2008

Windows Live Search has added a News component, according to a report by CNet's News.com blog. A meme tracker design has been employed for the front page of the news section. (If you don't know what a meme tracker is, check out Techmeme.com or Megite.com).

Also on the front page is a search box and an aggregate of local news in a sidebar to the right. Scroll down just below the fold and you'll find a row of news videos from mainstream media sites such as USA Today, AP Video, Reuters Video and Fox News.

When conducting a search, the results page loses its meme tracker feel. There's a listing of headlines with the first paragraphs of the stories. Thumbnail photos with stories accompany the articles in the listings.

On the sidebar of search results are options to refine the search geographically or conduct recommended related searches.

Like Google news, there are no ads on either the home page or search results page.

There's no official word yet from the Live Search blog. The feature comes a week after the release of updates to Live Search Maps and Virtual Earth 3D.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:02 AM | Permalink

March 7, 2008

At the Mix08 Conference in Las Vegas, Microsoft loudly declared its intentions to increase its share of the search market. Yesterday, Steve Ballmer told a room of 1,500 software developers that the software giant has its eyes set on catching Google.

During a Q&A with Guy Kawasaki, he called search the "killer application" of online advertising which he said will be the next "super big thing" and is the reason for the company's Yahoo offer.

Ballmer lamented the fact that Microsoft did not get an earlier start in the search game, but maintained that they were still the "little engine that could." He even rallied the troops by reenacting his famous "Monkey Boy" routine from 2001, but this time gave it a twist by chanting "Web Developers! Web Developers! Web Developers!"

Earlier in the week, during his keynote address, Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie spoke about how search was driving community-based innovation in the software industry and how the change was affecting online advertising.

"With online advertising projected to grow from $40 billion today to $80 billion over the next three years, advertising is going to continue to be the primary way that we and you monetize services and apps of all kinds of the Web," Ozzie said. "And so in terms of strategically what is Microsoft's role in advertising on the Web, the answer is, in short, to do our part and to use the resources that we have to ensure that there's a vibrant advertising ecosystem on the Web based on a highly competitive ad platform that's attractive to advertisers, publishers, and developers alike."

Ozzie also said these changes are affecting the way companies store information. "Most major enterprises are, today, in the early stages of what will be a very, very significant transition from the use of dedicated application servers to the use of virtualization and commodity hardware for consolidating apps on computing grids and storage grids within their data center. This trend will accelerate as apps are progressively refactored, horizontally refactored to make use of this new virtualization-powered utility computing model. A model that will span from the enterprise data center, and ultimately, into the cloud."

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:08 AM | Permalink

March 5, 2008

Yesterday at TechFest, Microsoft Research unveiled three projects designed to enhance a user's search experience. Two projects, SearchTogether and CoSearch, are aimed at collaborative search while SearchBar assists the individual searcher.

SearchTogether is a free Internet Explorer plugin that allows groups of people searching on multiple computers in different countries to collaborate their searches. The plugin will be available for download later this Spring and installs a sidebar on the IE web browser. SearchTogether's features include group query histories, split searching, page-level rating and commenting, automatically-generated shared summaries, peek-and-follow browsing, and integrated chat.

CoSearch enables collaborative search while users are gathered around a single computer. This is facilitated by the use of multiple mice or cell phones. For example, a person might use their cell phone to maneuver a cursor on the screen and transfer data to their phone, while another user may use a mouse to follow links on the same page at the same time.

Searchbar is an advanced search history tool that operates as a sidebar in a user's web browser. Users can save searches in order to return to them later and pick up where they left off. SearchBar organizes the searches in a hierarchical tree format. Users can write notes to themselves to remind them of future searches or any other information they wish to remember about their search queries.

Microsoft's projects are comparable to recent efforts by Google and social media startups to personalize and socialize search. But Microsoft could take the lead on such efforts because these projects offer users increased control of their own research efforts. With the ability to easily keep personal accounts of search queries and share and receive results from people they know, instead of being purely subject to algorithms and the opinions of a broad audience.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:18 PM | Permalink

December 3, 2007

The old saying goes that it's not about quantity, but quality. Can that be true for search marketing as well? Microsoft is hoping that new tools it's launching today at Search Engine Strategies Chicago will allow advertisers and webmasters to make the most of limited traffic.

In today's SearchDay, "Microsoft Adds More Tools for Search Marketers," we look at the adCenter Add-in for Excel and adExcellence accreditation program for search advertisers, and a new Webmaster Center for organic search optimizers.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 7:59 AM | Permalink

November 13, 2007

Recently I covered the new shopping search when I did an interview with Garry Wiseman of Microsoft, but yesterday the Live Search blog highlighted some additional aspects of their shopping search engine. You can see their example if you do a search on hp printers and then click on the HP Color LaserJet 2600n.

The resulting screen shows user ratings which have been culled from a review sites across the web. First of all, there is a global rating up top, a feature offered by many shopping sites. What is truly unique though is the presentation of summaries of all the review comments on a attribute by attribute basis. The above referenced interview covers how Microsoft put this together in detail.

What yesterday's post by Microsoft adds to the equation is an examination of the detailed review comments. If you click on the "Speed" link, for example, you get to see the detailed review comments themselves. This comes in two views, one that shows just the positive comments, and one that shows just the negative comments.

This is great if there is one aspect of the printer that is particularly important to you. Not only can you see the aggregated review score for all apsects of the printer, or the score on an attribute by atrribute basis, you can also see the detailed comments without having to visit multiple sites across the web.

For example, when you look at the detailed comments on speed, where 56% of the comments were positive, and 44% were negative, you can get a better picture as to how that feature was evaluated by users on these review sites. Not knowing the particular printer at all, after reading the comments, my sense was that it was reasonably fast if I put it in an environment where it was essentially for personal use.

You also get the sense that in office environments where larger printing jobs might be relatively common that you might not be as happy with it. This ability to drill down rapidly and quickly to the core of the issue that matters most to you is an extremely useful feature.

Posted by at 10:02 AM | Permalink

November 12, 2007

I had the chance recently to interview Ramez Naam of Microsoft. It was an interesting discussion focused on some of the key issues that impact core search algorithms. It turns out that there is an enormous amount of complexity in basic processing of search queries.

For example, one core concept is search is the notion of "stop words". These are words like "the", "and", is", and other words like them that search engines strip off user queries to simplify the process of finding the best results. Consider what happens when you enter the search query "the", for example. Microsoft returns 9.68 billion results, Google returns 1.57 billion results, and Yahoo returns 15.6 billion results.

Of course, this is because nearly every web page in the world has the word "the" on it. So this is a smart move that simplifies query processing. But, what do you do when the query is for "the office"? If the search engine strips of the word "the", the query becomes "office".

In addition to their being millions of offices across the United States, let alone the entire world, this is also the brand name of a pretty well known software suite (yes, I am being a bit flip). But if the person is searching for the TV show, "The Office", stripping the word "the" from the query will hurt the relevance of the results.

Dealing with stop words, and deciding when to not strip them from the query was one of the many enhancements to their core search announced by Microsoft in late September. There are many different issues of this type addresses by Microsoft at this announcement, most of which are discussed in my interview with Ramez, and it just reminds us of how complex search truly is.

Posted by at 9:40 AM | Permalink

October 16, 2007

Following up on the major updates rolled out in September, Microsoft today made another round of updates to Live Search, this time focusing on local and mobile search.

At the top of the list of new features is the launch of Live Search 411, a voice search product built on technology acquired from Tellme earlier this year. Features are similar to what Google offers with GOOG-411.

Besides Live Search 411, Microsoft improved its driving directions, and expanded its coverage area for bird's eye and 3D images. It also launched mobile versions of Live Search for Windows Mobile and Blackberry devices.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 3:50 PM | Permalink

October 15, 2007

No way I could pass on pointing to the Debby Richman blockbuster post.

Wharton says: Online recommendation engines may chop off Long Tail of Search.

Prick up your ears, Chris Anderson Your Long Tail doberman (below) is under attack:

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:38 AM | Permalink

October 19, 2006

Now that Internet Explorer 7 has been released in final format, I wanted to look at how search is being handled within the browser. There's been lots of discussion and worries about this in the past. Speculation time is over; reality is here. In this article, how the IE7 search box works, how you can change it and how Google and Yahoo's toolbars behave within it to try and maintain their default status, once gained.

The biggest difference with Internet Explorer 7 is the one that's been most discussed, a visible search box built into the "chrome." In the picture below, you can see the search box, complete with the word "Google" in light text to remind me what search engine is my default.

(NOTE: I've used a lot of screenshots, drawing off my Flickr account and picked a day when Flickr has became sluggish after I wrote this. Apologies if the pictures don't show when you view the page. Try reloading or checking back).

Google is my default search engine because it was that way in Internet Explorer 6. It became my default there with my permission, when I installed the Google Toolbar on my laptop (where I did today's testing) ages ago.

I removed the Google Toolbar for the purposes of testing IE7. That didn't cause the IE6 default settings to change, and to Microsoft's credit, they didn't try to override it when I upgraded to IE7.

Microsoft had previously said that if it detected a particular search engine was set to be a default, it would respect that. So, IE7 did -- sort of. Notice however what comes up in the main window of Internet Explorer 7 when I relaunched it:

Here, I'm notified that Google's my default, and I'm asked to confirm this or make another choice. Overall, I think that's fine. Yes, it's Microsoft hoping to change some minds. Maybe "Keep my current default search provider" should be ticked already. But I'd say most people who have Google as their default now will confirm keeping it that way. It's hardly anti-competitive.

Google, in particular, has disagreed. On a new machine, where Google has no presence or partnership, Microsoft Live Search will be the default. Google had suggested that users should be explicitly asked to make a choice from one of several providers. In my past article about this, I wrote about not being sympathetic to that idea, given that Google has had no problem paying to override consumer choice to gain the default position through deals with Firefox or through Dell installations.

Since then, deals have only accelerated. Yahoo partnered with Acer and also with HP. Google cut a deal with Adobe. It's difficult to know how a consumer is going to buy a "virgin" machine where the defaults haven't already been decided or influenced by some business deal.

Given this, let's focus on how consumers can make their choices after the fact. That's pretty easy. From that opening screen that IE gives after installation, tick the "Let me select from a list of other search providers" option and then choose Save Settings at the bottom of the page.

That will brings up this page (other pages might come up for other language/country configurations):

Very fairly, Microsoft isn't positioning themselves at the top of the list or more prominently than others. In fact, I think Microsoft is making a terrible mistake by just saying "Live Search" rather than "Microsoft Live Search." I think relatively few people know the Live brand right now. I can well imagine some people thinking, "Live Search -- what's that?" and skipping the search engine from consideration.

I selected Live Search from the list. That made a pop-up box appear:

Notice the option to make the choice as my default is NOT ticked. This allows you to add several search engines to the search box, which you can then selectively use while still maintaining your default search engine. You can add a bunch of different providers, and I'll come back to this more below.

It's worth noting that the Search Provider page links to information about the OpenSearch system, a way for anyone to easily create search engines that can be added to IE7. Of course, that doesn't mean you get added to the all-important Search Provider page. It just means someone visiting your site might be able to use a button that you promote to them to change their IE7 settings.

That Search Provider page also has an interesting box allowing you to visit any search engine, then do a copy-and-paste action to make your own search box. It's very clever. You simply search for TEST on anything that gives you a search box. Copy-and-paste the resulting URL, and IE7 will automatically create the right way to access that search engine for you. I added Search Engine Watch as a search engine to my IE7 installation easily by doing this.

In the example above, I didn't change my default search provider. Now let's say I want to, perhaps some time after I've initially installed IE7. Google has previous spun the idea of changing settings in IE7 as some complicated task. It even cited research saying only one third of users could figure it out. I have more faith that people can do it, so let's go through the steps.

Click the Tools button in IE7's menu, then pick Internet Options
On the General tab of the Internet Options window that appears, there's a Search area. Click on the Settings button here.
That brings up a Change Search Defaults menu: (FYI, I wish the "Find more providers" link was much more visible here. If you didn't pick more providers from when IE was initially installed, you won't have any choices in the main selection area -- and you might miss that link. This is handled in a better way through an alternative method I'll cover below).
Choose the search engine you want, push the Set Default button, then OK. Now you're done.

Well, not necessarily. After I did this, Google was shown as my choice within the search box in the chrome. Evil Google! No, it seems more an IE thing. When I closed and restarted IE7, the default was changed to Live Search.

Let's go back to that search box in the chrome. Obviously, you can use it to search. Enter some words, hit return or click the magnifying glass icon/button, and the browser will pull back results from your default search engine.

The box also allows you to temporarily or permanently change your default search provider. Next to the box, use the down-arrow to get a drop-down menu like this:

From it, any search engine you've added to your providers list is shown. You can see how several providers I've selected are added, including the custom choice I made for Search Engine Watch.

Choose a provider, and then your search will go to that provider for that particular search, similar to how the box in Firefox works. It stays this way until you change it back or until you close IE7 entirely.

Look at the bottom of the menu. The drop-down box lets you get to the IE7 search providers page or bring up the Change Search Defaults box I showed in step 3 above. That makes changing providers a two step process.

Next up, I wanted to see how the search engines competing with Microsoft were reacting to a freshly minted copy of IE7 showing up at their doorsteps. Would I get prompts to change, as we've seen in the past from both Google and Yahoo?

Google and Yahoo surprisingly did nothing. I wonder if this might because the final release of IE7 has made some type of browser agent change that the two have set to identify. We'll see. Meanwhile, Ask gave me this box enticing me to change:

Next up, time to deal with concerns that Google might be too aggressive in protecting itself once installed as the default via the Google Toolbar. I loaded up a fresh copy. In short order, Google asked me if I wanted to make it both my default search provider and notify me if something tries to change that:

To help avoid controversy, Google ought to make these separate options. But from a usability perspective, I can well understand the logic of making then a single choice. If I want Google to be my default, I probably don't want something to try and change that behind my back -- and many have had bad experiences with adware and spyware doing exactly that.

I told it Google fine, then I was surprised that the next screen made me decide whether to have PageRank display enabled or not.

In the past, I recall this as an option you were never prompted to enable. Instead, I recall it as something that search engine optimization folks (about the only ones who care) would enable by diving into the advanced options and switching it on.

I could be wrong in my recollection. If so, my apologies. But even with Google's clear "in your face" warning that enabling PageRank will send data to them, I still wonder if perhaps the screen should be different.

Maybe PageRank display should be disabled by default, rather than making you choose. The screen that appears would then ask explicitly if you wanted to change to enabled. It would explain what it provides to the user (the screen itself tells you nothing, not even a short description such as here). It would then warn, as it does now, that enabling the feature allows Google to see every page you are visiting.

All installed, Google gives me a big notice to let me know I'm ready to go with the toolbar:

I then tried to change search providers using the steps above. That seemed to work, but then I got this small notification in my task bar, along with an audible signal:

My task bar is at the top of the screen (where it belongs, in my opinion!). By default, the task bar is at the bottom of Windows machines by default, so the notification could be less noticeable there. The sound helps, but frankly I don't know why this was blocked at all.

There's a big difference between spyware changing your default setting and users themselves trying to change the default using the options within Internet Explorer. Google ought to be able to distinguish the two. Changes made by a user shouldn't be blocked. Moreover, any blocking ought to ask me for confirmation that it's going to happen, not just be done on my behalf.

In other words, consider this. I'd consented for Google to notify me if something was trying to change my default settings, as shown on that earlier screenshot. I did not consent to it doing the blocking on my behalf, which is what it did. It would have been far better if Google had produced some type of pop-up box telling me that something wanted to change my defaults and asking me if I wanted to allow this. Leave the choice with me.

I'll follow-up with Google about this. Meanwhile, what to do if you want to override the decision Google made for you? When that notification happens, you have to click on the little G button in your task bar (if the notification is gone, try changing again to make it come back). Clicking on the G brings up a box like this:

That box is what I think Google should actually show you, rather than processing it behind the scenes unless you manually make it appear. It tells you something wants to change your default, asks if you want to allow that to happen and lets you override what Google wants to do, remain the default, if that's your decision.

If you override, that should disable Google from doing any future monitoring, as it tells you will be the case:

That's what I found to happen. In fact, I see no signs that Google is still monitoring despite being told not to. That's what happened in July, when the GoogleToolbarNotifier.exe program continued to run. Google said this was a bug, which got some dubious laughs in some quarters. Bug or not, I certainly don't see it happening now.

To further test it, I went back to Ask.com and let it make it my default search provider. That worked fine.

Once you've disabled monitoring, what if you want it back? Use the Settings menu of the Google Toolbar, then on the More tab, you'll see two options:

The two different options intrigued me. What was the difference between:

Set and keep Search settings to Google
- Notify me on settings change

I enabled only the first. Bad, bad choice. If you do this, you simply cannot change your settings at all unless you go back into the Google Toolbar and override the option. Google will silently keep any settings from being altered. If you enable them both, then you get back to the behavior where at least Google will give you a notification.

Overall, here's what I'd like to see. The Google Toolbar should ask if you want to be notified about changes. If something tries to make a change, it should then ask you for explicit permission whether to override this, at least the first time -- perhaps it gives you an option to let Google handle these changes without notifications behind the scenes after that. But yes -- get in the users face more about what you're going to change initially, so they know what's going on.

Having played with Google, I next loaded up the Yahoo Toolbar. Ugh, not fun. First, Yahoo by default wants to cram Norton Spyware scan down your throat. Yes, right under the big Download Yahoo! Toolbar button in smaller text is an option to get just the toolbar without it. I'd rather see that option get equal play.

After the installation, like Google, Yahoo stands ready to be both my default search engine and help me get back to Yahoo if something changes my default settings:

Like Google, Yahoo makes it clear you've got the toolbar with this big pop-up window:

Decide to personalize the toolbar, as Yahoo suggests? To do that, you've got to have a Yahoo account. That means the toolbar does more than drive searches for Yahoo. Unlike Google, Yahoo's trying to generate user registrations, as well. The toolbar works without registration, of course -- but it no doubt encourages some people to sign up.

I manually changed my default provider from Yahoo to Google, using the steps above. Yahoo didn't block this. But when I closed the browser and relaunched it, I got this:

Fair enough. Unlike Google, Yahoo didn't silently switch itself back. It asked me to make that choice. It was also a one time thing. I told it to allow the change, then closed my browser and reopened it. Yahoo didn't come back and try to get me to switch back to Yahoo again.

Actually, I wouldn't have minded that. I find it very helpful that Firefox or Internet Explorer will keep asking me if I want them as a default unless I explicitly use the offered tick box not to be asked again. That's because it's easy to accidentally hit the wrong button. It's harder to both hit the wrong button and enable a tick box.

All this effort by the toolbars to maintain default status comes off the fear that the IE7 search box is going to somehow gain Microsoft tons of search traffic. I've been pessimistic about this actually happening. I've noted for ages that despite Microsoft long having hooks into IE for its own search, Google and Yahoo have both survived and thrived. My Google Worried About Microsoft's Browser Advantage? What Advantage? article goes into much more depth about this.

It's uncertain to me that the search box in the "chrome" is going to make that much of a difference, but I haven't seen much user behavior data here. I could be completely wrong, and Microsoft's competitors are certainly worried about it. We'll know in short order. IE7 is being rolled out in a mandatory fashion to Windows users beginning November 1 through the Windows update system. If Microsoft's search share rises, the chrome search box may be working.

However, I think many people will still fire up their browser and go back to the search engines they regularly use. Google and Yahoo might not have the enticements to switchover today up, but those will come. And I think those will help them to largely preserve their shares despite the IE7 rollout.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:16 AM | Permalink

October 17, 2006

Windows Live Search has added a new linkfromdomain command designed to show you all the sites that a particular domain links to. For example, want to see all the sites we link to off the Search Engine Watch Blog? Do this:

linkfromdomain:blog.searchenginewatch.com

Well, that's supposed to work. Right now, it doesn't. I suspect there's an issue with subdomains. Instead, I have to use the root domain of searchenginewatch.com, like this:

linkfromdomain:searchenginewatch.com

Windows Live Search has other link-related commands, and they explain more about these in the Search Macros: LinkfromDomain post on the Live Search blog today, completely with color-coded chart. I'll run through them as well.

Want to know who links to a particular domain, such as the US White House site? Use the linkdomain command, like this:

linkdomain:whitehouse.gov

As Windows Live explains, you can use the two commands together to see who links to each other. For example, want to see all the links from one site to another site, such as from Search Engine Watch to TechCrunch? Use the linkfromdomain command in combination with the site command, like this:

linkfromdomain:searchenginewatch.com site:techcrunch.com

That brings up 172 links? How about the reverse? Easy:

linkfromdomain:techcrunch.com site:searchenginewatch.com

That brings up 81 links. Unfortunately, I don't see a way to know exactly what specific page at one site links to that at another. Nor does it seem possible to see reciprocal links. In other words, the commands don't allow you to see which exact pages between two sites may link to each other. Hey, a boy can hope, can't he? Note that the page specific link: command might allow this -- I just haven't had a chance yet to find two pages I know link to each other to try it.

Last year, Microsoft rolled out something related that was long on my wish list, the inanchor command. It allows you to find pages that have links to them containing certain words. For example:

inanchor:miserable

Should be all the pages that have the word "miserable" in a link pointing at them. Unfortunately, you can't do multiple words. That means this won't work:

inanchor:"miserable failure"

Or at least it shouldn't according to the instructions. Instead, that's supposedly processed like this:

inanchor:miserable failure

Which should mean show all the pages that have links pointing at them containing the word "miserable" which also themselves have the word failure on them. The problem is, several of the pages clearly do NOT say failure on them, so it doesn't seem to be working correctly.

My real wish is to be able to see all the pages using certain words in links to other pages. That would allow us to finally see, for example, all the pages linking to the US White House and saying "miserable failure" in the links, helpful for those trying to understand this and other link bombs.

Link domain sort of allows this:

linkdomain:whitehouse.gov inanchor:miserable

That shows you all the links saying the word "miserable" and linking to the whitehouse.gov domain. Or at least it should show. I doubt it's working correctly, because it reports only 189 links. There are many, many more links like this out there.

Similarly, this doesn't seem to work to give you a page-specific report:

link:whitehouse.gov/president/gwbbio.html inanchor:miserable

It reports the same 189 links, suggesting there's no difference between it and the linkdomain command, which I've already said isn't working.

Microsoft has many more commands you can play with as listed here. There's also a special form you can use to play more with the new linkfromdomain commands here.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:41 AM | Permalink

October 12, 2006

The Live Search blog posted today tips on how to build a custom search engine that pulls pages back from sites you select. It seems very similar to when MSN Search added "Search Macros" at the end of March of this year. Yahoo Search Builder and Eureskter have similar offerings.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:08 AM | Permalink

October 5, 2006

BusinessWeek.com has a good article on search competition, explaining how Google's continued growth amongst all the competition is practically unaffected. In short, the article goes over new features, refinements, and user interfaces and explains that it is mostly about the trust the searchers have for the Google brand to provide the best results. Take a look at Danny's recent rant, he goes into this more and also check out Danny's post on Daggle.com named Why Search Sucks & You Won't Fix It The Way You Think. Want a view from a Google employee on the article, read Matt Cutts take on it, where he kinda of knocks Ask.com's topic communities link analysis method, saying it is "hard to explain" to people.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:20 AM | Permalink

October 4, 2006

A few new patent filings from Microsoft, Google, and Amazon.com. Microsoft explores the use of self organizing maps in one patent filing, and shows how those could be used to make geographic searches more relevant. They also explore URL canonicalization in another.

Google's newest patent filing expands upon Google Transit and Maps by providing information about taxi cabs, shuttles, limos, delivery trucks, moving vans, and other service vehicles.

Amazon is granted a patent for recommendation services.

Microsoft

This first patent application discusses the use of self organizing maps to increase search relevancy. It points to Self Organization of a Massive Document Collection as a reference source for readers of the patent filing, to help them understand how such a process could be implemented.

System and method for improving search relevance Invented by Christopher Weare Assigned to Microsoft US Patent Application 20060218138 Published September 28, 2006 Filed on March 25, 2005

Abstract

The ideas in the previous document from Microsoft could be used to help increase the value of some specialized searches, such as ones based upon geographical location information. This next patent application is a companion filing to that one, and relies upon the same technology to help with searches where location is important.

System and method for location based search Invented by Christopher Weare, Ashley Feniello, and Randy Kern Assigned to Microsoft US Patent Application 20060218114 Published September 28, 2006 Filed: March 25, 2005

Abstract

Not long ago, three researchers from Technion, including Google's Ziv Bar-Yossef, published a paper called Do not Crawl in the DUST: Different URLs with Similar Text. The following patent filing from Microsoft's Marc Najork visits some of the same territory, looking carefully at ways to pick the best single URL for pages that are substantially similar yet are at different URLs.

Systems and methods for inferring uniform resource locator (URL) normalization rules Invented by Marc Alexander Najork Assigned to Microsoft US Patent Application 20060218143 Published September 28, 2006 Filed: March 25, 2005

Abstract

Different URLs that actually reference the same web page or other web resource are detected and that information is used to only download one instance of a web page or web resource from a web site. All web pages or web resources downloaded from a web server are compared to identify which are substantially identical. Once identical web pages or web resources with different URLs are found, the different URLs are then analyzed to identify what portions of the URL are essential for identifying a particular web page or web resource, and what portions are irrelevant. Once this has been done for each set of substantially identical web pages or web resources (also referred to as an “equivalence class” herein), these per-equivalence-class rules are generalized to trans-equivalence-class rules. There are two rule-learning steps: step (1), where it is learned for each equivalence class what portions of the URLs in that class are relevant for selecting the page and what portions are not; and step (2), where the per-equivalence-class rules constructed during step (1) are generalized to rules that cover many equivalence classes. Once a rule is determined, it is applied to the class of web pages or web resources to identify errors. If there are no errors, the rule is activated and is then used by the web crawler for future crawling to avoid the download of duplicative web pages or web resources.

Google

Google has been adding cities to its transit service, provides information about traffic congestion in some areas, and has supplied driving directions for quite some time. Can they expand their services to help us hail a taxi, find out how close the Fedex truck when delivery a package, and let us know where the cable guy we are waiting for is?

User location driven identification of service vehicles Invented by Mark Crady, Michael J. Chu and Russell Y. Shoji US Patent Application 20060217885 Published September 28, 2006 Filed: March 24, 2005

Abstract

A vehicle position aggregation system receives position information for service vehicles from various fleet management systems, and maintains the current location of the vehicles in a database, including information identifying each vehicle's associated fleet and related contact information. End users can query the vehicle position aggregation system to obtain information about service vehicles in the vicinity of the user's input location.

Amazon.com

There have been a few patent filings from Amazon on recommendation systems. This one looks at similarities between items to make recommendations.

Personalized recommendations of items represented within a database Invented by Jennifer A. Jacobi, Eric A. Benson, and Gregory D. Linden Assigned to Amazon.com US Patent 7,113,917 Granted September 26, 2006 Filed: May 7, 2001

Abstract

My usual reminder about patents: Some of the processes and technology described in patents are created in house, and some are developed with the assistance of contractors and partners. A percentage are never developed in a tangible manner, but may serve as a way to attempt to exclude others from using the technology, or even to possibly mislead competitors into exploring an area that they might not have an interest in (sometimes skepticism is good.)

There are times when a Google or Yahoo acquires a company to gain access to the intellectual property of that company, or the intellectual prowess and expertise of that company's employees. And sometimes patents are just purchased.

Want to comment or discuss? Visit our Search Technology & Relevancy area of the Search Engine Watch Forums.

Posted by Bill Slawski at 6:11 PM | Permalink

September 21, 2006

Echoing earlier deals with Yahoo and Google, Nokia, the world's largest mobile handset maker, has said it will integrate Microsoft's Live search into its mobile search offering. Here's more from Reuters. The handset makers are doing deals with search brands, while the carriers (at least in the U.S.) are seeking to favor their own search solutions over Google and Yahoo for fear that they'll be bypasssed, just as most Internet ISPs have been online.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 11:55 AM | Permalink

September 15, 2006

Shocking, but true, Live.com Is Not Passing Referral Information, as I reported this morning. I spent the past 30 minutes or so debating with Danny and digging through my own log files and asking DaveN for his confirmation on this. Windows Live Search, which is now the default MSN search engine strips out the referer data, so you cannot track the traffic they are sending to you. After review, it seems like Live.com is using some sort of JavaScript to do some sort of click tracking, without using a URL string to track the click. That JavaScript appears to be stripping out the referral data. So it will be hard for SEMs to determine if Live.com is hot or not.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:51 AM | Permalink

September 11, 2006

Microsoft has pushed Windows Live Search out of beta, enhancing a number of features and adding some seriously cool functionality to other services, as well. More on the new tools in today's SearchDay article, Microsoft Upgrades Live Search Offerings.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 11:27 PM | Permalink

It's official -- Windows Live and the Windows Live Search service you'll find there are out of beta in the UK, plus it's now Windows Live powering the MSN portal that continues to run despite the new focus on the Windows Live brand. Oddly, when I got to the Windows Live site from the UK, the beta moniker is still there. And if there's a UK-version of Windows Live, that's nowhere in evidence. Details from what I was sent about the release:

Microsoft Corp. today announced the release from beta of Live Search and of Live.com in the UK, including final availability of Live Local Search. Microsoft also announced that Live Search will now power the Web search capability on MSN, the company's media and entertainment portal, attracting more than 465 million unique users worldwide per month.

Sharon Baylay, general manager of Microsoft Online Services Group, UK, said, "The launch of Live Search, Microsoft's new search engine, follows the recent successful launch of adCenter, Microsoft's new advertising platform which provides greater audience targeting. Live Search completes our strategy to compete in Search which goes beyond what people have come to expect of today's search engines. Live Search offers unique features, controls and personalisation to put consumers in charge of what they find online whether it be a web search, images, local mapping and more. Live Search pulls all this into a new, simple to use, service. This launch highlights our increasing commitment to search. Microsoft is number one in communications with leading mail and messenger products and now we're in a strong position to rival in the search space."

Postscript: Microsoft's UK PR company told me:

You're looking at the right UK version but the launch starts tomorrow and will take a day or so to be complete across the network.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:55 AM | Permalink

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