Microsoft's research arm has created an online game aimed at fine tuning search results, but Microsoft says it's not designed to help its fledgling Bing search engine grab a larger share of the search market.
Launched this week at the SIGIR09 conference in Boston, Microsoft Research's "Page Hunt" game shows players a random Web page and asks them to guess the top five search queries one would have to enter to find it. The Silverlight-powered game is designed to gather data on Web page metadata, refine search algorithims, and identify ranking issues, according to the researchers behind the project.
While some industry watchers see Page Hunt as a way for Microsoft to get Bing quickly up to speed with search rivals, Microsoft claims that it's just a research project that has no direct impact on search result rankings in Bing.
Bing had an impressive first month and at the beginning of July had a 12.9 percent share of the search market, compared to 10.5 percent for Yahoo and 75 percent for Google, according to Global StatCounter. However, Bing wasn't able to boost Microsoft's share of the online advertising market, which remained at the same 6 percent level that Live Search has had for years.
Of course, this would change quickly if Microsoft and Yahoo finally come to terms on a long-rumored deal that would make Bing the default search provider for Yahoo. In addition to putting to bed one of the most persistent, long running rumors in Internet history, the deal would give Microsoft an estimated 30 percent of the search market and a unprecedented foothold from which to challenge Google.
Bing doesn't directly impact channel partners' businesses, but VARs were pleased to see Microsoft launch a full-scale Bing onslaught at its Worldwide Partner Conference earlier this month.
"It's important for them to discuss Bing because some people believe that advertising, as opposed to licensing will be the primary model for software in the future," said Andrew Brust, chief of new technology for twentysix New York, a Microsoft partner in New York City.
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