While checking out the details of someone who is referral spamming me, I noticed that Alexa’s results are no longer provided by Google. They now say “Powered by Windows Live.” Here’s a pic:

Now, I know that I’m probably 1 of about 15 people in the world that ever see alexa results, (they have about a 1.5% share) but still – 1.5% more for Microsoft is like increasing their searchshare by 15%.

Windows Live is looking pretty darn good these days and providing some relevant results that are HUGE improvement over MSN. I would say that they are on par with Google for relevancy. Some people complain about the scrolling Ajax SERPs bar – but I really like it. It lets you dig deeper much quicker. I like the interface and the bar that lets you remove descriptions, or add “Search within this site.”

My biggest issue with windows live now is that it is much slower at returning results than Google – often taking 6 secs to return a result page. Maybe I’m nuts, but could that be because people are hand coding the results in real-time? Is that what they mean by Windows “Live”? That there are live people giving me these results? //half in jest.

I like the Live results so much that I have added the Windows Live Toolbar to my IE7 browser. IE 7 is great, but that’s a whole other post . . .

Here’s what I noticed about the Live toolbar during installation:

Microsoft bundled Onfolio with the toolbar:

Collect, Save and Share with Onfolio
Easily save, organize and share your online research with Onfolio. Capture copies of pictures, text or Web pages to your PC for reliable access later. Organize your Web research and publish it in emails, blogs and documents. Search through your clippings anytime with Windows Desktop Search.

When I tried to install that component, it said you need to have the .NET framework installed to run it and where to download it. I didn’t bother – it should have said “Install .NET framework?” in a checkbox.

The toolbar also pushes the install desktop search (it’s bundled by default) which I went ahead and installed. The desktop search is using about 26 megs of ram in the background, so I’m not sure if I’m going to keep it. But they didn’t stop there:

The Windows Live toolbar includes a button linking to Microsoft Spaces . . . these guys thought of everything! Not that I use Spaces or want that stupid button, but that’s exactly why Microsoft is so successful. They are the masters of bundling and pushing their products into the market. Some people find it annoying, but I find beauty in business genius.

The “You making Money” Part

In the firefox spirit, the Live toolbar has a gallery of customized buttons submitted by various designers. The most obvious ways to search are by number of downloads or average user rating. It looks like the most downloaded one has only 1500 installs at the moment. Do you see the marketing opportunity yet?

Number of installs and ratings with such a small number of users are figures that are easily gameable. It’s not that hard to figure out how to increase the number of downloads and pump the rating (most plugins aren’t even ranked). So:

1. Develop a customizable button that doesn’t suck now
2. Develop a plan to monitize that button and
3. Pump that button towards the top of their results.

We know that Windows Vista will come out . . . eventually. Windows Live Search doesn’t suck and is improving. It will get more popular and will eventally replace MSN. All those old MSN toolbars are likely to be updated to Live toolbars through a push – It’s just the Microsoft way.

Even if they “fail”, they’re going to get at least 5% of the worlds computers to install this toolbar. Right now, that’s about 5% of 1 billion online computers. Imagine if they do what they always do and actually win. Then we’re talking 300 to 600 million people using that toolbar in 3 years.

So by creating and pumping a custom plugin/ button now, you will be getting in on the ground floor before Vista’s launch makes this toolbar use widespread. This could give you a significant first mover advantage that allows you to ride on the on the coat tails of Microsoft’s inevitable success.

Another way to skin that cat might be developing IE7 plugins or Vista Gagets right now.

Now the only question is what the hell to call this post:

A. “Alexa chooses Microsoft Live for SERPs”
B. “Microsoft: Still Writing the Book on Bundling”
C. “Microsoft Live Search – Supprise! It doesn’t suck.”
D. “Build you Business with Live Toolbar Plugins”

I guess I’ve been reading too much copyblogger lately, because I decided to go with:

E. “Prepare to Make a Killing with MS Live. Here’s How:”

Here’s the Live Beta Developers Guide.

The top result for “search.msn.de” is one of Ice Blog’s Blogger accounts.

It took me 4 days, a blog full of personal bullshit and a few freebie backlinks to rank for search.msn.de. What will it take to rank for ebay.com or amazon.com?

The MSN hand coders apparantly haven’t gotten to that one yet.

From http://search.msn.com/s/jobs/openings/search%20jobs.htm

Mirrored here.

It seems MSN is looking to hire people to hand code SERPs to improve quality. I’m sure all three search engines do it to an extent, but it interesting to see a job opening for the position:

Hand crafted results
When all else fails, and the ranking algorithms do not pass the confidence threshold, we fall back to delivering handcrafted results. Working on a team of approximately 132 other handcrafters in 26 worldwide markets, you will receive a user query, use all the available search engines to quickly scour the web for results, pick the top 10 results for this query, and send it on to the user. Successful handcrafters can typically find top 10 results for a real-time user’s query in less than 3.8 seconds. This is an opportunity to truly connect with customers, because the queries that get routed to you are precisely the ones that the engine cannot answer well. We will have adequate staffing to allow generous coffee and bathroom breaks.
If you are an expert at using at least 3 different search engines, well versed with American English/colloquial usage, and can type at > 149 words/minute as measured by the Simia-Lico method – come join us and delight users real-time!

All I can say is that for MSN, all else has so far failed.

On the other hand, I would be GREAT at hand coding results . . . maybe I should apply!

Digg This story. It’s sorta anti Microsoft so it has a chance.