Although still technically in beta, the new
MSN Search debuted on November 11, 2004, after having for years relied on
licensed search technology from Yahoo. Earlier this year, the software giant
began building its own search algorithm and now boasts more than 5 billion pages
indexed and updated regularly--a database roughly comparable to Google's and
Yahoo's. But it's not size that matters; it's what a search engine does with the
many features associated with a good search engine, and Microsoft has yet to
prove itself.
Upside: The beta version of MSN Search offers
tighter integration with other Microsoft properties, drawing results from
Encarta and MSN Music. MSN Search catches up with other search engines by
offering neighborhood-specific searches and advanced search-querying
capabilities missing from previous iterations of MSN Search, such as restricting
results to a specific site domain, country, language, or even
popularity.