MSN has rolled out a new look for their search engine. MSN Search is now featuring a newly designed home page, as well as redesigned search results pages. Not only equipped with a new look, Microsoft has also altered the method in which they deliver information to the user.
While MSN hasn’t included their new back-end search technology, they have stopped listing paid inclusion links in their algorithmic search results. The redesigned SERP pages clearly define sponsored, targeted ad listings. These contextual ads, which are highlighted by yellow boxes, are still being supplied by Overture.
Yusuf Mehdi, corporate vice president of MSN, said about the upgrades:
“With this significant upgrade to MSN Search, we are delighted to now offer what we believe is the best search service available for the 350 million MSN customers. Among the many improvements, we’re particularly excited to increase the relevancy of many search query results by up to 45 percent.” 
Although the changes to MSN Search’s result pages appear to be primarily cosmetic, the redesigned homepage features upgraded search options. The search engine gives users the ability to search the web, MSN news, MSN’s Dictionary, Encyclopedia Encarta, stock quotes, movies, and shopping.
The MSN Search homepage also features quick links to Hotmail, My MSN, Messenger, MSN Home, News, Sports, Entertainment, Weather, and More. All of these links go to services provided by MSN’s portal page.
These redesigns are the first steps MSN is taking toward its own search engine presence. The redesign seems to be the easy part, relatively speaking. The hard part will be switching over from Inktomi sponsored search results to their own back-end algorithm. However, MSN’s new search technology being beta tested at their Sandbox page.
MSN expects to integrate their algorithms into the search engine later this year.
Chris Richardson is a search engine writer and editor for murdok. Visit murdok for the latest search news.
