New MSN Search is out of beta

(March 7 2003) MSN has implemented a new and leaner interface on its search page.

The MSN Search home page is reduced to a search form, a directory category listing and a small MSN search resource text box. The simplistic approach of Google is definitely winning new adherents.

There are no graphic ads on the front page. Nor are there any banner ads on the result pages. The only picture you get on the result pages is actually the MSN butterfly logo.

The results are ordered into five sections. First there may be a small text box presenting services from MSN, next there are up till five sponsored sites (marked as such), then quite a large number of hand picked sites form the LookSmart directory, before you get regular search engine results from Inktomi.

When searching for the term "search engine optimization" we get several pages with Web directory results, the first regular search engine result being number 262.

Does this matter? Yes, it does. The directory results are fetched from the LookSmart directory. The LookSmart directory combines pay per click commercial entries (for all practical purposes these are text ads) with non-commercial listings from the volunteer based Zeal directory.

Hence if you are searching for a term that is remotely commercial you will get a large number of text ads in the regular search results. This may not be such a bad thing if you are looking for goods and services, but if you are searching for informational pages, using MSN can be a frustrating experience.

We would have thought that MSN would have learned from Google and Yahoo! in this respect. Both Google and Yahoo! have concluded that what brings visitors back is the quality of search results. By all means include text ads if they are clearly marked as such, but do not let the ads compromise the relevance of the regular search results themselves.

Yahoo! has actually stopped including results from their own directory in the default search results for this very reason. They found that regular search engine listings from Google were much more popular among searchers. Searchers come back if they find what they are looking for, if not they will leave for Google.

Hence MSN should get credit for introducing a cleaner and more user friendly design. However, they should reconsider the way they mix results. In the short run the present use of LookSmart may bring in more money, in the long run the Microsoft run site may bleed visitors.

That being said, there is a way around this problem. As Gary Price has pointed out, if you use the advanced search page MSN will return regular search engine results only.

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