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Google’s hegemony in the online search game is not just the result of the search engine giant doing everything right but also its competitors doing everything wrong. Yahoo! were the inventors, pretty much, of the technology Google perfected that gave it market dominance and MSN have failed to utilise their massive development budgets to produce anything on search that is remotely exciting (we like Ms Dewey but she’s just quirky not exciting).

Now it seems Microsoft is willing to take the Japanese approach of copying and then improving and has put its budget to work which brings us to the new Live Search which pays more than just a little passing homage to Google’s own search page in terms of looks and capabilities.

Microsoft has unveiled the largest update to Live Search since January 2005 which, the company claims, has made the search engine more relevant, faster and more responsive in terms of understanding search intent rather than what’s typed in, than ever before.

What does this mean for your SEO efforts and should you be looking to do something different for your website, I can hear you ask.

Well, yes. For a start Live Search requires a slightly different approach. Its algorithm still responds to the number of inbound links coming in so even if they do not count with Google Live Search will rank a site with a large number of links higher than its competitors so link building, even from sites with zero PageRank (PR) or reciprocal links, still works.

As you’d expect Microsoft are nothing less than rapturous about their updated search with Press Releases and new spec details filling up dozens of web pages. But from a company that uses no fewer than forty words to tell us that the database of its index has grown by a factor of four (how many words did that just take to say?) a pinch of salt is a necessity.

However let’s look at some of the innovations at least which are relevant to a webmaster’s SEO efforts:

"Live Search Video, powered by a new in-house video search technology, allows users to search for and browse online video content, and watch high-quality videos from the Web. With a new smart motion preview feature, consumers can now preview video within the search results by rolling over the thumbnail of the video.

"Live Search Local allows consumers to search local business listings, helping them make more informed decisions with rich business details and reviews, all within Live Search.

"Live Search Image has increased the image index and changed its user interface. With this increase, consumers are now able to search across millions of images and receive precise results with smart scroll, thumbnail image-sizing customization, filmstrip view and the ability to see the full image without leaving the results page.

"Live Search Products helps consumers easily find and discover products, reviews, guides, prices and other relevant information — all within the Live Search interface, giving them confidence in their buying decisions. User reviews at a glance, powered by our new Opinion Index technology, summarizes the sentiment of the Web about a product, which can save consumers both the time and hassle of combing through multiple Web sites for this information.

"Live Search Health helps consumers refine health searches quickly using related medical concepts to get relevant health information from a broad spectrum of perspectives, and helps them navigate complex topics with inline article results from experts like the Mayo Clinic — all on a single page.

"Live Search Entertainment helps consumers stay informed of the latest entertainment news with inline celebrity answers accompanied by images, video, facts and buzz. In addition, Live Search’s new xRank feature allows consumers to find out how their favorite celebrities rank in regard to total Web searches via a daily updated ranking.

"Live Search Instant Answers provides answers to questions at the top of the algorithmic results, so consumers spend less time searching for the information they need. Several new and updated Instant Answer features include Live Search traffic, weather, maps, entertainment, news, product, stocks and health.

"Live Search Maps updates in the coming months will include a new user interface, better ways to map local business listings, and quicker, more accurate directions with better printing features.”

Clearly, just on these improvements Live Search is one to keep an eye on. Love or hate Microsoft as a webmaster your focus is to get your site ranked high and served on search engines’ top pages often, so in your SEO efforts go through our feature on how to best optimize your website for inclusion in Live Search.