Microsoft has updated its Live Search in an effort to provide users with more relevant results and to further compete with Google and Yahoo and capture a bigger piece of the search market.
Over at Search Engine Land, Greg Sterling says that Microsoft has achieved its goal of making Live Search much improved compared to what it had before. He points out though that all the major search engines are doing similar things.
“Stepping back, what’s interesting is that all the major search engines are doing variations of the same thing: building more content and structure into search results. They’re no longer simply presenting lists of links. Instead they’re building out a much more visually and content rich presentation on the first page of search results.”
Karsten Weide, an analyst with IDC, told the Mercury News that Microsoft’s improvements to Live Search could help the company to increase its market share but it would be difficult to make progress against Google. “If a company wants to change users’ habits, they need to prove they are a world better than the incumbent,” he said. “This is not going to turn the tables.”
Gartner analyst Van Baker told InfoWorld that Microsoft has done a poor job at selling its search offerings and if it has matched Google on relevance few people would believe that right now. He did point out that Microsoft had the right approach by focusing on current Live Search users, saying,”
They’ve got to make sure that [group] is happy first,” Baker said. “After that, it may be able to convince others that Live Search is worth a try.”
