Microsoft debuts new search tools on Windows Live

Microsoft is trying to tackle its declining share in the search engine market by introducing new tools it says will make Web searching easier and more efficient.

The tools are debuting in test form on Microsoft's Windows Live service along with some cosmetic changes: The search page has a cleaner look, with tabs at the top for news, images and other categories. The engine is expected to be available on the Live.com page by the end of the day.

"We believe it'll take search design into the next generation," said Lisa Gurry, a product management director on the project.

Microsoft is looking to differentiate itself from Google and other search engines. Right now, the general search experience across all the engines is essentially the same, Gurry said.

One new feature offers the ability to peek at a search result without having to open the page. Hovering over a link gives a shapshot of the result in a side window, but the snapshot doesn't automatically show the relevant text within the page. To see that, a user must type words into a box nearby.

Microsoft is also introducing a way for people to customize the number of results that show up on a page. Why would you want fewer results? For one thing, they would appear larger on the page and be easier to read.

The company is capping the maximum number of results at 250, or 1,000 for an image-based search, betting that no one really wants to sift through more than that. The move is risky in that it immediately ratchets up the pressure for Microsoft to make sure those 250 results are the best and most relevant.

"We've made significant progress on the relevancy of our results and have to invest on improving that area," Gurry said. "The 250 number absolutely gives us the right level of depth."

Microsoft is also announcing a new toolbar that includes technology from a Cambridge, Mass. company called Onfolio, which Microsoft has aquired for an undisclosed amount.

With Onfolio's product, which Onfolio had been selling for $30, Microsoft users can collect search results and other content from Web sites and e-mail them or post them to a Web log.

The moves come as Microsoft appears to be losing ground in the search engine market. According to Nielsen//NetRatings, Microsoft's market share declined to 11 percent in January from 12.8 percent in January 2005.

Google's market share grew by 1.1 percent in that same time period to 48.2 percent, and Yahoo's share grew by 0.9 percent to 22.2 percent.

Microsoft isn't seeing that much of a decline in its internal measurements, Gurry said. Still, she said that the new tools introduced today are part of an effort to change those trends.

"We know that just improving the core basics is not going to be enough to dramatically change the game in search," she said.

One analyst, Matt Rosoff at Directions on Microsoft, said he didn't think the changes would be enough to draw people away from Google. It will be hard to know for sure until the tools come out and people start using them, he said, but most users generally seem to prefer Google.

"The traffic figures, they just don't look good and there's no disguising that," he said.

Kim Peterson: 206-464-2360 or kpeterson@seattletimes.com