Search Engine Optimization

Microsoft is doing what it does best – buying out the market share. After 6 failed attempts at luring in people with prizes, Microsoft is trying for the 7th time. In this round you can win:

• (2) 2009 Mitsubishi Lancer SE, value of $21,493
• (1) $10,000 cash
• (1) Two Raptors 09-10 Season Tickets, value of $8,000
• (5) Entertainment Centre, value of $5,330
• (1) Raptors VIP Package, value of $5,000
• (15) HP Pavilion 15.4″ Laptop, value of $800
• (43) Xbox 360, value of $300
• (43) 80GB Zune, value of $230
• (400) Ticketmaster $100 Gift Card
• (15) Raptors signed basketballs, value of $100
• (15) Raptors signed jerseys, value of $100
• (947) Ticketmaster $50 Gift Card

You have to be Canadian resident to participate.

Microsoft is offering half backed donuts with a chance to win a free coffee.

At the moment Live Search sucks on many fronts. Competitive queries like “mortgage broker + city” “celebrity” etc, return pretty relevant result, but when you get to long tail search Microsoft simply does not deliver. Among search results you can often find spam pages, with 0 content.

Merge Development with Marketing

My guess is Microsoft got the old style structure – marketing in one room, developers in another, with little communication in between. Developers do their job making search better, marketers attract traffic. The problem occurs when you market a half backed donut – those who try it are not going to be overly impressed, even if you give them a chance to win a free coffee while they’re choking on the donut.

Google on the other hand has (unconciously?) built marketing in their product development. The products are often plain good and market themselves (analytics, docs, gmail, maps, books search etc) without the need to lure in visitors with prizes. When someone uses their product, they want to tell their friends, because in many cases its plain good.

I think with the amount of cash Microsoft has they ought recruit 100 brightest young minds they can get their hands on, and task them with development of algorithms, tools and user perks. All the budget spent of prices can easily give at least one yearly salary to a smart engineer. Though results are not as quick, eventually there will be a better pay off. (there are no results with cash back at the moment anyway).