MSN Search Changes Outlined

MSN will change the way it displays search results so that the most relevant results are more prominent. It will also introduce several new search tools, including one to search personal Web logs (or “blogs”) and another that answers natural language queries. The moves continue a year-long effort to compete with Google and could signal a coming shift in the status of MSN’s search partners.

Algorithmic Results Above the Fold

When users run a search on MSN today, the relevance of the results varies widely, depending on the term entered. For some search terms, like “auto insurance,” the top half of the page consists entirely of search listings that have been paid for by advertisers (some paid directly to Microsoft, but most to Overture, now a division of Yahoo, which shares the revenue with MSN). Users must scroll down to see results selected solely for their relevance to the search request (“algorithmic” results). In addition, the way MSN labels the results-with small gray text and confusingly named categories-can make it difficult to tell which results are paid and which are algorithmic. Google, in contrast, places all paid results in their own box on the right side of the page, with algorithmic results occupying the center.