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What do ya all think of Microsoft's newest search engine?

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by guybrush

Dani AI

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Short expert note on Windows Live Search and what matters for site owners and SEOs.

Microsoft's search experiments around that time moved toward richer, script-driven result pages and tighter integration with its Windows Live services. That can improve the browsing experience for many users, but it also changes the ways content is discovered and consumed. The reactions from this thread show the two usual tradeoffs: a newer UI can feel smoother for modern setups while creating fragility for older browsers or slow connections.

Practical troubleshooting for users who see crashes or layout problems (brief checklist):

  • Test the page in another browser and with extensions disabled to rule out client-side conflicts.
  • Try a no-JavaScript view or a text-only mode to confirm whether client-side rendering is essential.
  • If the UI fetches results dynamically, watch network activity (developer tools) to see stalled requests or large downloads.
  • Report reproducible errors with browser/version and a simple repro path; that helps engineers diagnose crashes.

Actionable SEO guidance (what to change on your site so your pages remain findable):

  • Ensure each logical page of content has a stable, crawlable URL. Don’t rely solely on client-only navigation.
  • Provide server-rendered fallbacks or HTML snapshots for content loaded by scripts so crawlers can index it.
  • Use sitemaps and webmaster tools to surface important URLs and monitor crawl errors.
  • Prioritize fast, semantic markup and mobile-friendly layouts so content works across varied devices and network speeds.

Context note: Microsoft later consolidated its search efforts under new product names, but the core lesson stands — design for robustness: predictable URLs, accessible markup, and fast delivery keep sites visible no matter how the search UI evolves.

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Member Avatar for Dani

I like it :) My friend just showed it to me last night. I especially like the endlessly long pages hehe. Guess that'll eliminate SEOs screaming "I'm on page one of the SERPS!" :)

Member Avatar for canadafred

I've been playing around with this new search tool all week :eek: . It seems like it almost duplicates MSN results and if that is the case then MSN outperforms it by a mile. I am one of those rare Microsoft fans but I must say that I am totally disappointed with live. I like the results it is offering me, I'm doing standard searches but the thing keeps crashing on me and the scroll bar concept is driving me nuts. I can't figure out why I can only get maybe the
first 20 or so results. I'm on a dial-up connection and it is extremely slow, when it works. Their "promises" of
outperforming G with a bigger badder machine, with this beta launch, kind of leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. At this stage, I don't think G has anything to worry
about, but I've been around long enough to wait and see.

I'm hoping that this beta version is up for serious restructuring before the Vista upgrade. I think that the average web searcher will be frightfully discouraged with the layout and performance.

Member Avatar for Dani

I will have to admit that I just quickly checked out the interface and have yet to see what the search results it offers are like. I do like the interface though ... I'm also on a speedy broadband connection.

Member Avatar for guybrush

whatever happend to the concepts of global accessibility and quick results?
Remember that 80% of world's internet users are still on dialup. They'll be losing out on that demographic.

The first rule of site usability is that a horizontal scroll bar should never appear. I still use 1024x768 at my home pc and when i loaded the site, it was too wide for that resolution.

As far as the results are concerned, dont see too much (read any) difference from MSN. The backend db is definitely the same.

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