[putnik]

I was looking through Google News yesterday evening and found some interesting (but probably old) news regarding Microsoft's MSN Search Engine giving up its Yahoo search technology and taking a Google approach to search. Before their search page was a tiny little search box and a whole bunch of ads covering it all around, but now if you go to http://search.msn.com you will see a totally different type of MSN search. No ads, almost no images at all except for their logo and if you compare that page with Google's first page it's so identical. Well just read this article from IHT.

NEW YORK: It must be fun to walk through the Microsoft parking lot, reading the bumper stickers on the cars. Can you imagine what they must say? "Honk if you love monopolies." "Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean we're not out to get you." "My other car is a Hummer, too."


But the lawyers' bumper stickers probably say, "You can't copyright an idea." Despite its admirable if largely unsuccessful recent efforts to pioneer product categories - wireless watches, wireless screens and so on, Microsoft's greatest hits have been clones of other people's successful work, including Windows (based on the Macintosh), Pocket PC (PalmPilot) and Internet Explorer (Netscape Navigator).

Last week, Microsoft identified the object of its latest obsession: Google, the No. 1 Internet search page. (Google, you may recall, is preparing for an initial stock offering with an estimated value of $25 billion. Nobody bats around numbers like that without attracting Microsoft's attention.)

For years, Microsoft's own Web search page, MSN Search, has finished a distant third place in the search-engine popularity wars (behind Google and Yahoo). The company's new plan is apparently to remake MSN Search in Google's image.

The Googlification of MSN will occur in two phases. The first, a cosmetic makeover, is now complete and ready for your inspection at www.search.msn.com. The new look consists of an empty white screen that loads blissfully quickly, even over dial-up connections, and an empty, neatly centred text box where you're supposed to type in what you're looking for.


The search page is ad-free and, except for the MSN logo, even devoid of graphics. In short, MSN Search couldn't look more like Google if you photocopied it.

Once you click Search, you're in for a pleasant surprise: Microsoft has stopped trying to trick you into clicking on its advertisers' links, which it used to scatter among the genuine search results. That approach may be a short-term money-loser for Microsoft, but it's a huge winner for you. It's a more honest approach than Yahoo's, in which advertisers pay Yahoo to ensure that their links appear, unmarked, among the true search results (a practice called paid inclusion).

In addition to finding text on Web pages, Google and Yahoo can also find news stories, product prices and so on; MSN Search offers its own twist on this idea. Just to the right of the search box, a pop-up menu offers a few intriguing choices. Some are common to Google and Yahoo (Stock Quotes, Shopping), but two of them mine unique MSN properties: Encarta Encyclopedia and Movies.

If you're a regular MSN visitor, this overhaul is a windfall. You woke up one morning last week to find that the MSN Search page was faster, cleaner and Googler.

But at this point, MSN still relies on search technology licensed from Yahoo. (The search results aren't identical to Yahoo's, but the family resemblance is unmistakable.)

Illya