News Categories
Powerset joins Live Search
Date : 2008 07 01
Live Search's WebLogWe're excited to announce that we've reached an agreement to acquire Powerset, a San Francisco-based search and natural language company. Powerset will join our core Search Relevance team, remaining intact in San Francisco. Powerset brings with it natural language technology that nicely complements other natu read more »
Live Search cashback now live on eBay
Date : 2008 06 12 Live Search's WebLogNow all of eBay's "Buy it Now" offers will be eligible for cashback rewards. With eBay's expansive catalog of products, from jewelry to electronics, you'll start to see more cashback ads appearing in our search results. That means more ways for you to save. You'll see three primary differences between this us read more »
Helping you Search AND Give
Date : 2008 06 04 Live Search's WebLogOne of the most exciting developments we've had in the last year was the success of our inaugural Search and Give program where your queries helped to raise more than $250,000 for local schools and non-profits. Over the course of the year the program generated cash donations for more than 20,000 organizations read more »
Managing search engine access to your content
Date : 2008 06 03 Live Search's WebLogWe at Live Search are pleased to announce another collaboration with Yahoo and Google aimed at making webmasters' lives easier. Webmasters have long used the Robots Exclusion Protocol (REP) to control how search engines access and display their content. The REP offers an easy and efficient way to communicate read more »
Finding the "page not found"
Date : 2008 06 03 Live Search's WebLogHas this ever happened to you? You search online for information and click a promising link only to get an error page staring back at you: These generic 404 error pages leave you stranded, with no option but to click the back button and start over, or just give up altogether — not very helpful. We th read more »
Live Search…coming to a toolbar near you
Date : 2008 06 02 Live Search's WebLogWith today’s HP announcement and the recent MSN toolbar release, I want to discuss our recent moves in the toolbar space. Overall, these distribution deals come down to three things: 1. Live Search is ready for primetime These types of deals require a search engine that can stand on its own, as we all know read more »
Wikipedia gets big
Date : 2008 05 30 Live Search's WebLogCheck it out: We realize that often you just need to get a sense of what your query is about. Wikipedia is great for that — you can learn enough from the first paragraph of a Wikipedia article to start you out on the right path. For Wikipedia results, we now show a good portion of the first paragraph read more »
Book search winding down
Date : 2008 05 23 Live Search's WebLogToday we informed our partners that we are ending the Live Search Books and Live Search Academic projects and that both sites will be taken down next week. Books and scholarly publications will continue to be integrated into our Search results, but not through separate indexes. This also means that we are wi read more »
You talk. We listen.
Date : 2008 05 15 Live Search's WebLogIn our last release of Live Search for Windows Mobile we snuck in a little feature that allows users to send feedback directly to the engineering team. Since then, we've received tons of messages from users, many of which have been requests for new functionality. So what's the moral of the story? Ask, and you read more »
More than a pretty face
Date : 2008 05 06 Live Search's WebLogAlong with the release of our new search experience, we'd like to give some background into the design team and process that went into all the changes you see. You might not immediately think of design as being a critical part of a search product, but we think it is, and we have a growing team of designers, r read more »
Answering your questions on QnA
Date : 2008 05 01 Live Search's WebLogWe've introduced our "Renaissance" release of Live Search QnA Beta. Our re-birth signifies the beginning of a new set of features that we'll continue to grow. We had three goals for this release: Focus on the QnA experience for new users. Encourage users to discover content and functionality in new ways. Hi read more »
xRank™ Musician — better than top 40 night at the disco
Date : 2008 05 01 Live Search's WebLogJust when you thought we'd stop at Celebrities, we now bring you (drum roll, please) Musicians! xRankTM provides much more than just a way to track search trends — it's much more than that — it's a social commentary. With xRankTM Musicians we bring you the "mob's view" on what's shaking up the m read more »
New Product Search gives you more options
Date : 2008 04 30 Live Search's WebLogWith the recent update of the Product Search experience (http://search.live.com/products/), users can both research and find deals on products within Live Search. We've incorporated feedback from our users during the beta cycle and revamped the user experience, so now users can search and refine products by u read more »
Shop and search on the go
Date : 2008 04 28 Live Search's WebLogWe've just released the latest updates to our browser-based mobile search at m.live.com. One of our major efforts was to bring the power of product search to the convenience of a mobile phone. Think about how much time people spend shopping in brick-and-mortar stores — without the ability to do the pro read more »
News Search – now with RSS
Date : 2008 04 24 Live Search's WebLogYou wanted it, and now you have it. We've incorporated RSS feeds into the browse and search results experience. Subscribe and stay up to date with stories from all categories or for specific searches that you perform. We appreciate all the feedback that you've given us. We take it all seriously and do our bes read more »
xRank™ Celebrity — check out who’s hot and who’s not!
Date : 2008 04 24 Live Search's WebLogThose of you who search for stuff related to celebrities in your spare time raise your hands. C'mon now, don't be sheepish about it — we know the numbers, and we know you do it because we do it, too. Here's a thought. What if we could rank who you and all other Live Searchers like to search for? And th read more »
Going deep: diving into the site you want
Date : 2008 04 22 Live Search's WebLogWhen we were thinking about what searches we could improve on for this release, one thing we realized was that we actually were already getting a lot of searches right. A bunch of these were searches about a particular website you wanted. We returned the website, and you went there. Good times. But you didn't read more »