A Weird Soul - Latest Comments in MSN Search - New and Improved

Re: MSN Search - New and Improved

ankurraheja — Mon, 07 Feb 2005 12:41:26 -0000

Today's Article on Google search:
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/ew/2005/02/...

Re: MSN Search - New and Improved

Govind — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 13:55:09 -0000

Hmm, google got famous with its simple looking interface. Have to see, how MSN will be received. :)

Re: MSN Search - New and Improved

mskadu — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 00:16:15 -0000

I have referenced your post in my latest blog entry and have add some further comparisons by myself. Pl. do take a look.

Re: MSN Search - New and Improved

Gaurav — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 00:01:59 -0000

There is, I just searched something which MSN considered as "Sexually explicit" and didn't return any result, not even the regular search, but when I changed my settings to no filtering, it displayed a lot of results and images.

Edit: They introduced the languages too.

Re: MSN Search - New and Improved

abhi — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 23:44:50 -0000

concluded that you mean, there is a safesearch for word search but not photo? Is that what you meant?

I meant Image Search. Try searching something pornographic in MSN, nothing will come up and there is no choice either.

Re: MSN Search - New and Improved

Gaurav — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 22:35:32 -0000

I am gonna update the article in few minutes.

Tom Strong - I never heard of it before, I think it has a lot of options, I'll definetly look at it sometime later.

Tim Jowers - I am sorry I didn't get you. Do you mean if I searched for the words "britney spears" (without qoutes) or if I searched for a specific website?

Susan Lundy - You are most welcome.

Re: MSN Search - New and Improved

Susan Lundy — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 18:51:47 -0000

I'm a newbie...(my first comment) and I must say...thank you for doing this!!

Re: MSN Search - New and Improved

Tim Jowers — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 16:49:15 -0000

Thanks for the article. Search seems to be by keywords in the name and not site content, page content, or (the goal) image content. Is that right?

Re: MSN Search - New and Improved

Gaurav — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 15:00:49 -0000

>good review. however, i would like >to discuss some points here:

Thanks!

>I am confused here, why would you >think so, Britney has millions of >pictures on the web and Google is a >living proof of it.

Actually it would have been appropriate if I wrote unique. A lot of time same image is used in various wallpapers...etc, may be she has a lot more. It was just a guess

>You cannot really blame a search >engine for that, the images are >shown from the search engine cache >and if the page has not been indexed >after it was changed, this is bound >to happen. it happens with Google >too.

I am not blaming MSN for that, but suggesting that it is possible that, it may not be really indexed but some kind of feed uploaded and it got errors, obviously its just a possibility. The cache thingy is also possible.

>They are most probably the same >image under two different names, >hence indexed twice but I could be >wrong. Also you may see that the >file sizes are different, one is 14k >and the other 15k.

I think they are different images, but very similar. The texture and color is a bit different.

>I have already talked about the >mistake here.

I read this comment on your site "welcome to my site. thanks for the info. i noticed that after reading your comment. unfortunately MSN doesn’t give you choice whether or not to block pornographic images, which isn’t very good for a search engine"
I concluded that you mean, there is a safesearch for word search but not photo? Is that what you meant?

Re: MSN Search - New and Improved

Tom Strong — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 11:34:13 -0000

How about a comparison to another multimedia search engine like http://www.gofish.com.

Re: MSN Search - New and Improved

Gaurav — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 11:00:35 -0000

Poonam - Actually its on /. :D

Abhi - I haven't read your comment, will reply later.

Re: MSN Search - New and Improved

Poonam — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 09:48:26 -0000

interesting..only one comment but 630 visits! wow :smile:

Re: MSN Search - New and Improved

abhi — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 06:33:12 -0000

good review. however, i would like to discuss some points here:

I personally don’t think that Britney would have more than 10k pictures online (or may be offline too?)

I am confused here, why would you think so, Britney has millions of pictures on the web and Google is a living proof of it.

The links from celebritypicturesarvhive.com are mismatching. The thumbnails point to a wrong picture.

You cannot really blame a search engine for that, the images are shown from the search engine cache and if the page has not been indexed after it was changed, this is bound to happen. it happens with Google too.

Apperantly, I noticed that out of first 8 results on Google, 2 pair of images were very similar. I think they should try to avoid the repetition in the results (atleast on the same page.)

They are most probably the same image under two different names, hence indexed twice but I could be wrong. Also you may see that the file sizes are different, one is 14k and the other 15k.

Abhi claims that MSN search does not have a content filter, which is not true. MSN search engine DOES have a content filter, which actually works better than Google.

I have already talked about the mistake here.

The difference between grayscale and black and white images MIGHT confuse a layman as the grayscaled images are generally called black & white images. Yahoo and MSN are taking search for dummies approach.

That's right, thanks for the point... :)

I understand that no software can be 100% accurate in checking explicit stuff, but Google doesn’t say that on the settings page. Both Yahoo and MSN have put the disclaimers by their safe search settings and in MSN & Yahoo if you try to remove the content filtering, it asks you to “Agree” a disclaimer. This doesn’t affect the user experience a lot, but can definetly avoid lawsuits.

Yup, always avoid the green legal monster... ;)

On the other hand Google produces a link with a parameter “safe” if safe=active it means the safe search is on, but if safe=off then it means no filtering at all. It is really a cool feature as one can customize the searches and even use them dynamically. The only problem with this is that it overrides the user’s settings.

Thanks for this point too... :)

Well that's all, I guess. and thanks for pointing out the points missed and the errors... :)