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Monday, January 17, 2005
Different rumors and pre-announcements are leaking onto various forums. And news reports speak of a "growing proportion" of MSN Search users being defaulted to the beta of the "new MSN Search," which many of us enthusiasts have been using for awhile now.
Sources inside the company confirm that the full switchover will take place tomorrow, with "90-95%" of users soon being taken to the new search, with 100% not long off.
Unsurprisingly, word has it that Microsoft has tested various configurations with a view to revenue maximization. But more importantly, it's fairly obvious (according to observers who have looked at things like job postings) that Microsoft's pay-per-click results, currently served by Overture, will simply be taken in-house.
But what might happen in the interim? I'd guess that Microsoft will keep the page relatively uncluttered this year and even deliberately take a hit on revenues from PPC, since a big share of those revenues would be going to competitor Yahoo, which owns Overture. Indeed, I'd expect Microsoft to keep a pretty clean search results page for some time to come in a bid to grab market share from chief rivals Google and Yahoo.
Posted by
Andrew Goodman
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