Microsoft released a revamped
search engine that borrows many of Google's innovations.
It's a clean, uncluttered page with mostly whitespace. It no longer seeds search results with paid advertisements. And it has only plain, unobtrusive text ads, clearly labeled as such, just like Google.
Here are a few snips from a funny
New York Times article describing the changes:
The Googlification of MSN will occur in two phases. The first, a cosmetic makeover, is now complete and ... consists of an empty white screen that loads blissfully quickly .... Phase 2 of the MSN Search makeover ... an all-new search technology ... the company claims will be even better than Google's ... to replace its licensed Yahoo software within a year or so.
On July 4, MSN added a waving-flag graphic, an imitation of the way Google's witty artists dress up its own logo on holidays ...
Microsoft has stopped trying to trick you into clicking on its advertisers' links, which it used to scatter among the genuine search results. That approach may be a short-term money-loser for Microsoft, but it's a huge winner for you. It's a more honest approach than Yahoo's, in which advertisers pay Yahoo to ensure that their links appear, unmarked, among the true search results (a practice called paid inclusion).
Unfortunately, Microsoft calls the separation of advertising an experiment, not a permanent change in policy. It seems to be trying on honesty in the mirror to see if people will find it attractive, rather than realizing that running a principled business is the way to win customers' trust.
MSN Search page [is] faster, cleaner and Googler ... but at this point MSN still relies on search technology licensed from Yahoo.So while the interface has changed, the article finds Microsoft's results don't measure up to Google or Yahoo:
The new MSN Search looks like Google but doesn't work like Google.... typing "England average income" yields a useful answer in Link No. 1 on Google's list and No. 3 on Yahoo. MSN Search doesn't answer the question at all (at least not on the first couple pages of results).
