[QUOTE=jiggy]... Does anybody actually think Microsoft can become serious competitors to dominating Google?[QUOTE]

I don't take this question as an opportunity to speculate.

This question has wrestled in my mind many times when forecasting where to focus my energies. I have seen how 100's of search engines have battled for the dominance that Google now enjoys.

Beyond rumours, media coverage and speculation are the historical realities for search engines. The same things that caused them to succeed as a search engine must perpetuate. When I look at the staggering statistics of how Google sometimes has about 80% of the search market and MSN sometimes less than 8%, I am reminded of the fierce struggles of the likes of Infoseek, Altavista, Go, AskMe, Canada.com, Inktomi, GoTo, Overture, Euroferret, AOL and Northern Light, to name a few.

Now the question: Can Microsoft be a serious contender for search supremacy? I don't see why not. That is why I focus my energies equally between Google and MSN.

OT Of course, the advantage to one player having search superiority is that it makes SEO simple: satisfy one set of criteria. Hopefully, by doing that it is more than adequate to satisfy other search engines. I know some may whine "I rule in Google but fail in MSN". To those I say: if you have anything that is not considered ethical SEO - abandon it. Particularly, pay close attention to your linking partners. The PR bar has purpose indeed when examining pages that link to yours ( are they greyed out or 0/10's ). I look at link partners as being express routes to the cemetary for purposeless link building machines as it expands to include all the participants.