Microsoft Unveils BrowseRank, Google Feels a Draft
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Microsoft recently unveiled the details of BrowseRank, its new browsing algorithm meant to compete with and eventually outperform Google's PageRank. Instead of measuring the links to and from a specific page, BrowseRank calculates how often users visit the site and for how long. Microsoft feels this will give Internet users, and not web developers, more control over page relevancy, thus leading to a freer, more democratic Internet.
Search, like many things in life, is all about Rank. And right now Microsoft is a distant third, a dark and unfamiliar place for a company so used to dominating the computer industry. Indeed, Microsoft is struggling to remain relevant in the search world, peering over Yahoo's shoulder while trying to catch a glimpse of the real superstar. Of course, I'm talking about Google, the undisputed Internet Search King. As of June 2008, Google accounted for a whopping 70% of all U.S. searches, which is up 6% from June 2007. Yahoo came in a distant second with a 20% share, while MSN had just five and a half percent and barely held off ask.com for third place.
It's not like Microsoft hasn't tried though. A few months back, I wrote about Microsoft's attempt to regain a share of the search advertising market by offering cash rebates to consumers who searched for and purchased products through their search engine, Live Search. Many "experts" took this as Microsoft thumbing their nose at the notion that the search engine with the best results will have the most success. They assumed Microsoft thought they could buy users away from Google. It seems, so far at least, that even though money talks, users still want the best search results. Microsoft would have to do more.
A month later, Microsoft answered with the purchase of the semantic search engine Powerset, which attempts to comprehend the full meanings of phrases typed in to a search box. Google still bases its results on individual words, while doing little to understand their meaning. However, Powerset is limited to searches within Wikipedia, and experts wonder whether the technology will ever be applied within a major search engine (although its iPhone application has garnered significant praise). Nevertheless, Microsoft seems to be doing all its talking with its wallet (see its failed acquisition of Yahoo) with little innovation coming from within the company itself.
Enter BrowseRank, a collaborative effort from Microsoft's own researchers and scientists from various Asian universities. Seeing as PageRank is at the heart of Google's success, it was obvious that Microsoft had to tackle this algorithm head on if it ever wanted to seriously compete with the reigning Search King. In the sections to come, I will detail both PageRank and BrowseRank in an effort to determine which comes out on top.
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