Microsoft just released the new version of MSN search. I was using the beta version since some months. I’m really impressed by the work they done. They started from scratch and do this in 2 or 3 years (don’t remember the exact numbers). His look and options make him look like Google; but he is not. One of the main features of a search is that you have the power of how you want to perform your search. All indexed links are composed of 3 new characteristics: the update frequency, the popularity and the accuracy of the match. You have many more power on the result you’ll get. The one I particularly like is the popularity tag. The problem with Google is that most of the time you always have the same 10 or 20 first results; always on the same sites. If you want an obscure website, you need to scroll 500 pages. But with the popularity tag, you can put it at 0 and you’ll have all the obscure sites you want. This search flexibility is the real innovation for this type of search engine. It gives more power in the users’ hands. How can you change them? Click on the “search builder” then click on the “results ranking” tab and you’ll got it. There are also other cool features like the integration of Encarta entries in your search results.

A new feature that is not essential but is so cool is the RSS search feature. You can build a query like this:

http://search.msn.com/news/results.aspx?q=SEARCHTAG&;format=rss

SEARCHTAG is the search query string. Replace it by “moleskine”, put it in your RSS reader and check the result.

Finally there are many other cool things. You just have to play with it and read the help section. It’s sure that it’s not ease to change your searching habits but I just tell you to try it for some searches, and after some you?ll know if you like it or not.

Technoratie: [msn] [searchengine] [rss] [feed] [moreover]