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For the Future of Search, Microsoft Takes a 10-Year Backward Step

posted on July 25, 2008


What’s wrong with this statement, made by the Microsoft team building BrowseRank–it’s answer to Google’s PageRank?

“The more visits of the page made by the users and the longer time periods spent by the users on the page, the more likely the page is important. We can leverage hundreds of millions of users’ implicit voting on page importance”

“More visits?” – sure, spammers will have no idea how to inflate that metric. ;-)

“Longer time periods?” – couldn’t that also mean that your web site usability and navigation just sucks?

This has been tried before, but does anyone see Direct Hit topping the search market share charts?

Come on Microsoft, is this the best you can do?


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  • http://www.jaankanellis.com Jaan Kanellis

    Wow really sad. They really need to hire some people at least abreast as to what is happening in the online marketing industry as a whole to put the brakes on crap like this.

    Jaan Kanellis’s last blog post..TBPR Updating and Penalties Being Removed by Google

  • skywalker

    This paper was written by some interns at their China research facility. Not bad idea, but implementation could be a problem. First of all how do you get all the user’s browsing behaviour data?

  • http://www.360view4u.com free market research

    gobsmacked

  • http://www.erikvossman.com Erik

    Are they serious or is this some type of reverse thinking whereas they actually will punish those sites that make a huge jump in this criteria after the release of this insane statement?

    Erik’s last blog post..Wordpress User Video Upload Script as a PHP Consultant

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  • http://mygassavingtips.com/magnet-can-help-in-fuel-saving Patrick

    I think this is sad because it is from Micrsoft and I just hope they don’t lose their credibility.

  • http://www.ecodemagic.com Joe

    Bottom line: Microsoft is a bunch of out-of-touch money-hungry corporate-bot idiots. I rest my case (and my hyphens).

  • http://www.jordankasteler.com/utah-seo-pro-blog/ Utah SEO Pro

    They need to give it up. Srsly. just stop.

    Utah SEO Pro’s last blog post..Advanced Keyword Research for SEO

  • http://www.greatpriceshere.com Nicole Price

    ROTFL!

    Nicole Price’s last blog post..Green Gifts

  • http://www.futurefactory-software.com Warenwirtschaft

    I think the basic of the idea is sound, but it is nearly impossible to implement.

  • http://www.rank-pro.info life_eclipse

    They need to stick to making operating systems and software. When it comes to the internet they are “lost in the sauce”. The simple fact is that Yahoo! and MSN work night and day to figure out how they can make money off their users and in my opinion try to find ways to (unsuccessfully) disguise their services as user friendly and free when they are really doing nothing but compliling demographics for marketing “partners”. If they spent more time working on providing truly free, “no strings attached” content and focused on unique (not just imitation Google services) services, they actually might have a chance to compete with Google. That’s not to say Google doesn’t exist to make money, but it’s obvious they put the user first. Seems Microsoft and Yahoo! spend more money trying to convince their users they are the best then they spend on actually providing the experience the users seek. Sorry a little off-topic but I believe very relevant in regards to the psychology behind the Microsoft “strategy”.

  • http://www.faroo.com wolf

    The FAROO P2P Search Engine has been doing something very similar for some time already: http://blog.faroo.com/?p=36

    wolf’s last blog post..FAROO Version 2.0.3109.26002 – Release Date 7.7.2008

  • Dave

    The paper states at BrowseRank was more effective at reducing spam than both PageRank and TrustRank. Additionally, PageRank is easily manipulated via paid links – BrosweRank, not so much. It should also be noted that something like BrowseRank or PageRank isn’t the only factor in rankings and is a small piece of the pie.

  • http://www.newhomessection.com Jayson

    Yeah, it’s not a bad theory, but it would be hard to – not – rule out important pages and vice versa.

    There’s just too many different situations in which their data could be flawed.

    On second thought, they have data we only dream about and more than likely have already put types of websites in certain ranges – outliers win and lose – . With millions of tweaks, and a few thousand hand-jobs, they could have a pretty solid search.

    @skywalker – IE

  • http://www.open-source-development.com/ Rakhi

    A good way of making estimate and traffic manipulation. But again will take a great heart to implement this. It is easy in saying but difficult to practically find right solution.

  • http://www.i-com.net SEO I-COM

    BrowseRank calculated by the number/length of visits. Sincerely, MSN even after all these never stop surprising me. Have they been researching all these years to come up with this backward solution?!

  • http://www.gradresource.org Tony

    It’s time they wake up.

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