Microsoft's search engine way behind Google? Blame the name

http://technologizer.com/2009/04/08/microsofts-search-engine-way-behind-google-must-be-the-name/

by technologizer • 17 years ago

5 6 17 years ago

I can believe that.

It's evident in how people work. Google got a few things right :

- Got the users early : Just a simple textbox opening up the doors to the world wide web was what got people using it (as compared to others like altavista with heavy pages that took a while to load .. and load times were (and still are) very important.

- Kept the users : Given how humans work, once people get used to using something, they would go to great lengths to avoid changing. In the same vein, once I get used to using Google and getting what I need, it will take a lot of effort to make me switch because frankly, I don't need to because switching would take me out of my comfort zone and involve changing myself.

- Scaled : Peer pressure / Word of mouth is a strong thing. As more and more people use Google and like it, they tell others about it. Imagine hearing that Google is the best from a bunch of trusted computer-savvy friends/relatives than seeing a commercial saying Live search is better. Who are you likely to trust ?

lucumo2• 17 years ago

I'm not sure about the quality of Live Search. I do know that I'm starting to find that Google Search gets increasingly more annoying over time. Not in the sense that I start to dislike their interface, but more that their latest "enhancements" actually mess up my search experience.

An experience a week or so ago will nicely illustrate that. I was searching for PHP CMSes that have a tutorial to write modules, so I was searching for "php cms module tutorial" (without the quotes). I got to the search page and started furiously middle-clicking promising results. Once at the end of the page, there was a small note without any specific typesetting saying "Note: The word 'module' was dropped from your search results. Click here to search again with the word included." (Quoted from memory, so I may be a little off.)

Don't do that. If I ask for something, don't give me something else! And definitely don't do it without telling me beforehand.

They're doing something similar where they include a few results for something they think you ought to have searched for, then a horizontal rule, and then the thing you actually searched for. At least there I know it's happening, but it's still not what I asked for.

By all means, give me a suggestion if you think I made a mistake. But give me what I asked for anyway. Without me jumping through hoops for you. It messes up my train of thought :-(

jast• 17 years ago

You're right! Just tried it now and it shows:

"Tip: These results do not include the word "module". Show results that include "module"."

This is very, very annoying...

lacker• 17 years ago

"module" is definitely a bad word to drop from the query [php cms module tutorial]; that's a problem. But I think a lot of times dropping a word makes the search work and the user never even realizes what happened. It's one of those things you only notice when it goes wrong, so what is an acceptable success to failure ratio?

lucumo2• 17 years ago

I would say that failure should be very, very low. What I really took issue with here was the relative silence about altering my query. It wouldn't have been half as bad if the note was on the top of the page.

I would really prefer it if they just suggested that I may like to try the search without the word and leave it up to me to decide if that's what I want.

In any case, these Google fuck-ups are not a rare occassion for me anymore. This morning I was searching for "min cut directed graph" (no quotes). Of the 10 results on the front-page only three were about directed graphs. The rest were about undirected graphs, despite the fact that I explicitly asked for directed graphs.

At that point I snapped and continued my search with Yahoo!. Something I expect to do more often when this keeps up. It's really hard to find something if this is the way things work...

josefresco• 17 years ago

If only Microsoft had hired me about 5 years ago. I would have started several top secret projects that would essentially rebrand each of Microsoft's products (OS/Office/Search) in an attempt to gain the kind of underground support that Google enjoyed in the late 90's.

Microsoft's search engine way behind Google? Blame the name

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