Microsoft Corp. is releasing an update to Live Search centered on improvements to core search technology and deeper advancements in the vertical search areas of entertainment, shopping, local and health. Collectively, these improvements mark a quality milestone based on the company’s focus on delivering a better search experience for consumers and advertisers.
The majority of Live Search customer feedback has focused on improving overall search relevance to deliver richer and deeper results and investing in differentiated experiences in high-interest consumer areas such as entertainment, shopping, health and local search.
Microsoft’s efforts toward satisfying its Live Search customers can be grouped into a few key areas: Over fourfold increase in index size; Substantial improvements in understanding query intent; Significant enhancements to core algorithms; Increased focus on query refinement; New Web data extraction model; and Expansion of Rich Answers.
Additional improvements to the service include a new, cleaner user interface that makes the results pages easier to read and use; a more robust Answers platform that provides instant access to information from trusted sources while increasing relevancy; and organization of results pages based on the high-interest search verticals of entertainment, shopping, local and health on one page.
Originally posted on September 27, 2007 @ 7:00 am