The History Of MSN Live Search And Bing
October 10, 2009 by Ron
Filed under Search Engine Optimization
MSN Live Search (Bing) is the branded name for Microsoft’s web search engine.
Currently, it is the third most used search engine in North America after Google™ and Yahoo!
This is also virtually the case here in Australia with Google™ being the top dog for search engines. Originally called MSN Search, Live Search was launched in the fall of 1998.
At first, it used search results provided by Inktomi,a search engine that had been developed by professors at UC Berkley in the mid-1990′s.
Inktomi later went bankrupt in the 2000-2001 dot.com bust and was subsequently acquired by Yahoo!
In early 1999, a version of MSN Search was launched which displayed listings from Looksmart (a search advertising network and management solutions company based in San Francisco that provides search advertising products and services to text advertisers, as well as targeted pay-per-click search and contextual advertising) in combination with results from Inktomi except for a short time in 1999 when results from AltaVista’s search engine were used instead.
Subsequently however Microsoft upgraded MSN Search to provide its own Microsoft-built search engine results (list of web addresses with samples of content that meet a user’s query), the index of which is updated on a regular basis.
Live Search For MSN Makes It’s Debut
The first beta version of Live Search to be released to the public debuted on March 8, 2006, with the final release on September 11, 2006 replacing MSN Search. On March 21, 2007, it was broadcast that Microsoft would separate its Live Search developments from the Windows Live services community.
Live Search was integrated into the Ad Platform headed by Satya Nadella, part of Microsoft’s Platform and Systems division. As part of this integration, Live Search was consolidated with what you would know as Microsoft AdCenter.
As part of the changeover from MSN Search to Live Search, Microsoft also started performing their own image search, using their own internal image search algorithms (this work had previously been outsourced).
What Was Offered With Live Search
Live Search offers users the ability to search for specific types of information using search tabs that include Web, news, images, music, desktop, local, and Microsoft Encarta (is a digital multimedia encyclopedia published by Microsoft). A configuration menu is also available to change the default search engine in Internet Explorer.
Features offered by Live Search (Bing) include the ability to view additional search results on the same web page (instead of needing to click through to subsequent search result pages) and the ability to dynamically adjust the amount of information displayed for each search-result you receive (meaning you will see just the title, a short summary or a longer summary).
It also allows the user to save their searches and see them updated automatically on Live.com.
Live Search is not limited to reporting back indexed pages that mach an ordinary search query. When typing in a search query using more than one word (keyword phrases) Live Search will search results trying to match all the keywords. It also has advanced search options available through an advanced link followed by drop down options, or directly via entering advanced options in the search query.
Since early 2009, Microsoft has been internally developing a new search engine that may eventually replace Live Search which is now known to everyone as Bing. This new engine, currently named Kumo, will be different from Google’s search in that results are categorized, however like Google™, Kumo (Bing) will likely sell advertising space in the form of sponsored links displayed with each search.
For webmaster Bing also comes with a link so that you can add your websites called the webmaster center.
i think that Bing is not as good as Google™.
Google™ would still index new websites faster than Bing. Microsoft would still need a lot of catching to do with GoogleBot.
Hi Kymm
I would have to agree with you on that however all the search engines have there place in the big picture and what is most noticeable about Bing and even Yahoo is that time is what is needed to be indexed correctly by those two engines.
Where Google has services in place that easily allow your site to be found fast.
I use both Bing and Google search engine and I don’t see much difference in their search results. I use Google for searching hard to find academic topics and Bing for general search.
Wicked post, I totally agree. How long have you been blogging for now, I really like the design of your site. Cheers, Dorsey Botcher
I use Bing and Google whenever i want to find something on the internet. I think that both search engines are very good. ,
Lately I prefer using Bing. To me it uses a more pleasing interface and though not always as thorough as Google I still get excellent results. My vote if for Bing.
A nice bit of history on search engines there. I personally think that Google are the ones to beat now and that others, even with Microsofts power, will struggle to overtake them. That’s the problem with ‘industry standard’ products. They are hard to overtake.
Google rocks! I love using that one best.
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i use bing all the time now its on my x box and i think its great in fairness like all the other search engines it finds you the websites you have asked for !!!
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I started using Bing a few months ago and I think it’s a good one. But still nothing beats Google as a search engine. I’ve been using it more than Bing because I find it more comfortable, but I’m not saying Bing isn’t. Google has established already its name in the business line and beating it would be hard for others now, in my opinion only.