MSN’s Search Engine Preview is Back
At the end of July I reviewed MSN’s first tech preview for their new search engine. I wasn’t impressed. (Man, I’m getting crabby. Hey you kids, get off my lawn! Where’s my Geritol?!) Now there’s another preview available at http://techpreview.search.msn.com/ and the relevancy is much better.
The query box is still simple, still a single search form. The about page says there are now more pages in the index; I wrote last time that there were about a billion pages in the index, but I don’t see a count now.
A search for flowers is better than before. The first result is a content site about flowers — one of those ones which has been well-optimized and has ads on it, but with good content. A review of floral stores, etc.
There’s a title, URL, and snippet on the page, and a link to a cache. I can’t tell you anything about the cache because it keeps timing out. From 15 results we’re down to ten results per page… nnnngh.
The relevancy is much better than the last time I played with it, but this is still a pretty skeletal engine. I’d like syntax, more information on the results page, some kind of advanced search form, etc. The relevancy is improved enough that I’m eager to see what they’re adding.
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Columist Tara Calishain is writer and editor at ResearchBuzz and author of the new book Web Search Garage
