Microsoft search engine

So what are Microsoft aiming for? Well, Google has built a multi-billion dollar advertising empire from their search engine technologies. The same technology now powers an excellent desktop search tool which indexes your hard drive and adds results from your computer with those from the web. I have tried it in beta format and it is very good.

So why is Google so popular? From my point of view, I like Google because I don't want to find out the weather, news, dating services etc that other search engine operators seem to think I need. Just give me a search box and a button and I'm happy. If you look at their search portal, it is tidy but it's a cheap front for an old system. Never mind that it doesn't follow W3 guidelines.

Microsoft are going to have their work cut out. They will no doubt have a huge impact with other groups such as Yahoo, AOL and the like but I don't think they will dent Google's dominance.

What exactly are Microsoft offering with this search engine? Nothing I can see. OK, so there maybe a new desktop searching tool but I never use the original search facility anyway. I use Google desktop search because I use Google to search the web and they work side by side.

From a search engine optimisation point of view I'll have a lot more work to do. Microsoft cannot be ignored as a world power and will certainly grab some of the market, even if it is from Google's competitors and not Google themselves. Usually, new search engines start to form watching websites so I'll be keeping my eyes peeled, run my own tests to see any algorithm patterns to look out for and adjust any SEO tactics accordingly.