Microsoft takes on Google with rival search engine

MICROSOFT will go head-to-head with the likes of Google from today after the computer software giant launched a rival internet search tool.

Google, the world’s most popular search engine, has built up a huge global following thanks to its easy-to-use service.

Bill Gates’s Microsoft is now hoping to clinch a large slice of the lucrative market with the arrival of its new MSN Search facility, www.msn.com.

The tool, which launches in 24 countries and 10 languages today, is designed to give better search options and more relevant results.

A key feature allows users to ask specific questions such as “What is the capital of Peru?” and “What is the largest ocean in the world?”

The answers are provided by an on-line version of Microsoft’s Encarta encyclopaedia which has more than 1.4 million entries.

The new search engine is billed as providing the most up-to-date information by refreshing around five billion websites every two days compared with every two weeks in other cases.

The benefit for users is that they access the latest results and have a better chance of avoiding sites which are down.

There are also a number of tools that give people more control over how and where they search.

Beginning yesterday, Microsoft’s own search engine will permanently replace the Yahoo search technology that has been used on Microsoft’s MSN website. But Yahoo’s technology will be still be used for the “sponsored” listings that companies pay for, and that appear separately alongside the main search results.

Yusuf Mehdi, a corporate vice-president with Microsoft’s MSN online division, said the company has taken suggestions from people who used the test version to improve some functions, such as a feature that answers questions using the Encarta encyclopedia.

In a statement, Google said: “We welcome all advancements in search technology because it’s the users who ultimately win.”