Microsoft Search Engine
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I'm curious what others here have experienced when using the MS Search Engine to find technical information. Today I was using it, as I do regularly, to find information to answer a question asked of me by another. In doing so I also agreed to respond to a survey about the experience. I'm sure most respondents just click the boxes and radio buttons and move along, so I was careful to describe my experience when given the opportunity to do so. I think they're making a sincere effort to improve and deserve that input. What I wrote was: "It would be very helpful if the search engine would return less information, but actually relevant to the subject. It's initially pleasant to find a full page of references after entering a search, but extremely disappointing to read through each one and discover that not one of them contains anything related to the search subject. For example, one of the search topics today was how to set up ICS in Win98, since most people still use Win98 as their primary client OS. It's easy, I know, but I haven't done it in years, and the client is a remote location that I'm servicing via email. The search returned topics including a How To... link, but the link led to a page about WinXP. Other entries were links to descriptions of ICS, but containing no instructions. The Resource Kit link led to a Resource Kit online, but it was the original version which didn't include ICS, instead of the Win98SE version which did. This is typical of all searches of Microsoft.com; the returned links are tantalizingly close, but there's no useful content at the other end. I still try it, but I increasingly wonder why. Other search engines on the web invariably find information on Microsoft.com far more reliably than Microsoft's own search engine." Is this in agreement with your own experiences using the service? Or am I unduly harsh. I'm truly not interested in Microsoft bashing - I use their products and have for more than 20 years. But it is frustrating that 5 minutes on Google consistently provides more and better quality information on Microsoft products than hours spent with their own search service. Comments? Some people think of it as a six-pack; I consider it more of a support group.
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I'm curious what others here have experienced when using the MS Search Engine to find technical information. Today I was using it, as I do regularly, to find information to answer a question asked of me by another. In doing so I also agreed to respond to a survey about the experience. I'm sure most respondents just click the boxes and radio buttons and move along, so I was careful to describe my experience when given the opportunity to do so. I think they're making a sincere effort to improve and deserve that input. What I wrote was: "It would be very helpful if the search engine would return less information, but actually relevant to the subject. It's initially pleasant to find a full page of references after entering a search, but extremely disappointing to read through each one and discover that not one of them contains anything related to the search subject. For example, one of the search topics today was how to set up ICS in Win98, since most people still use Win98 as their primary client OS. It's easy, I know, but I haven't done it in years, and the client is a remote location that I'm servicing via email. The search returned topics including a How To... link, but the link led to a page about WinXP. Other entries were links to descriptions of ICS, but containing no instructions. The Resource Kit link led to a Resource Kit online, but it was the original version which didn't include ICS, instead of the Win98SE version which did. This is typical of all searches of Microsoft.com; the returned links are tantalizingly close, but there's no useful content at the other end. I still try it, but I increasingly wonder why. Other search engines on the web invariably find information on Microsoft.com far more reliably than Microsoft's own search engine." Is this in agreement with your own experiences using the service? Or am I unduly harsh. I'm truly not interested in Microsoft bashing - I use their products and have for more than 20 years. But it is frustrating that 5 minutes on Google consistently provides more and better quality information on Microsoft products than hours spent with their own search service. Comments? Some people think of it as a six-pack; I consider it more of a support group.
If you try searching using google, it may return you relavant link from Microsoft. :-) and yes its true, some links which can not be navigated from the page at MS is found using google.
God is Real, unless declared Integer.
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I'm curious what others here have experienced when using the MS Search Engine to find technical information. Today I was using it, as I do regularly, to find information to answer a question asked of me by another. In doing so I also agreed to respond to a survey about the experience. I'm sure most respondents just click the boxes and radio buttons and move along, so I was careful to describe my experience when given the opportunity to do so. I think they're making a sincere effort to improve and deserve that input. What I wrote was: "It would be very helpful if the search engine would return less information, but actually relevant to the subject. It's initially pleasant to find a full page of references after entering a search, but extremely disappointing to read through each one and discover that not one of them contains anything related to the search subject. For example, one of the search topics today was how to set up ICS in Win98, since most people still use Win98 as their primary client OS. It's easy, I know, but I haven't done it in years, and the client is a remote location that I'm servicing via email. The search returned topics including a How To... link, but the link led to a page about WinXP. Other entries were links to descriptions of ICS, but containing no instructions. The Resource Kit link led to a Resource Kit online, but it was the original version which didn't include ICS, instead of the Win98SE version which did. This is typical of all searches of Microsoft.com; the returned links are tantalizingly close, but there's no useful content at the other end. I still try it, but I increasingly wonder why. Other search engines on the web invariably find information on Microsoft.com far more reliably than Microsoft's own search engine." Is this in agreement with your own experiences using the service? Or am I unduly harsh. I'm truly not interested in Microsoft bashing - I use their products and have for more than 20 years. But it is frustrating that 5 minutes on Google consistently provides more and better quality information on Microsoft products than hours spent with their own search service. Comments? Some people think of it as a six-pack; I consider it more of a support group.
I agree with you 100%. Microsoft searches pretty much suck. I often just Google, and point it to microsoft.com, if I really want the information. MS is supposedly pumping tons of resources into making their search better, hopefully this will apply to *all* Microsoft searching technology and not just MSN. Sometimes I feel like I'm a USB printer in a parallel universe.
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I agree with you 100%. Microsoft searches pretty much suck. I often just Google, and point it to microsoft.com, if I really want the information. MS is supposedly pumping tons of resources into making their search better, hopefully this will apply to *all* Microsoft searching technology and not just MSN. Sometimes I feel like I'm a USB printer in a parallel universe.
Navin wrote: MS is supposedly pumping tons of resources into making their search better, hopefully this will apply to *all* Microsoft searching technology and not just MSN. The problem with Microsoft is that they try to be everything to everyone, and their products suffer for this. So, instead of MS spending hardly nothing to use Google's Technology[^] they'll pump God knows how many of millions just so they get something and call it Microsoft Search something or another and only have it come out worse. I wish MS would just stick to what they're supposed to be doing and do it well instead of spending effort trying to make the best damn MS something or another on the planet, etc. rather than working on Longhorn, etc. Jeremy Falcon
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Navin wrote: MS is supposedly pumping tons of resources into making their search better, hopefully this will apply to *all* Microsoft searching technology and not just MSN. The problem with Microsoft is that they try to be everything to everyone, and their products suffer for this. So, instead of MS spending hardly nothing to use Google's Technology[^] they'll pump God knows how many of millions just so they get something and call it Microsoft Search something or another and only have it come out worse. I wish MS would just stick to what they're supposed to be doing and do it well instead of spending effort trying to make the best damn MS something or another on the planet, etc. rather than working on Longhorn, etc. Jeremy Falcon
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I'm curious what others here have experienced when using the MS Search Engine to find technical information. Today I was using it, as I do regularly, to find information to answer a question asked of me by another. In doing so I also agreed to respond to a survey about the experience. I'm sure most respondents just click the boxes and radio buttons and move along, so I was careful to describe my experience when given the opportunity to do so. I think they're making a sincere effort to improve and deserve that input. What I wrote was: "It would be very helpful if the search engine would return less information, but actually relevant to the subject. It's initially pleasant to find a full page of references after entering a search, but extremely disappointing to read through each one and discover that not one of them contains anything related to the search subject. For example, one of the search topics today was how to set up ICS in Win98, since most people still use Win98 as their primary client OS. It's easy, I know, but I haven't done it in years, and the client is a remote location that I'm servicing via email. The search returned topics including a How To... link, but the link led to a page about WinXP. Other entries were links to descriptions of ICS, but containing no instructions. The Resource Kit link led to a Resource Kit online, but it was the original version which didn't include ICS, instead of the Win98SE version which did. This is typical of all searches of Microsoft.com; the returned links are tantalizingly close, but there's no useful content at the other end. I still try it, but I increasingly wonder why. Other search engines on the web invariably find information on Microsoft.com far more reliably than Microsoft's own search engine." Is this in agreement with your own experiences using the service? Or am I unduly harsh. I'm truly not interested in Microsoft bashing - I use their products and have for more than 20 years. But it is frustrating that 5 minutes on Google consistently provides more and better quality information on Microsoft products than hours spent with their own search service. Comments? Some people think of it as a six-pack; I consider it more of a support group.
Roger Wright wrote: But it is frustrating that 5 minutes on Google consistently provides more and better quality information on Microsoft products than hours spent with their own search service. I think it very important that there is intelligent life outside MS. MS have some pretty good product lines like the OS, the Office, SQL Server, etc, but when it comes to source control and full-text searching, their products are among the worst I've ever seen. Due to technical difficulties my previous signature, "I see dump people" will be off until further notice. Too many people were thinking I was talking about them... :sigh:
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I'm curious what others here have experienced when using the MS Search Engine to find technical information. Today I was using it, as I do regularly, to find information to answer a question asked of me by another. In doing so I also agreed to respond to a survey about the experience. I'm sure most respondents just click the boxes and radio buttons and move along, so I was careful to describe my experience when given the opportunity to do so. I think they're making a sincere effort to improve and deserve that input. What I wrote was: "It would be very helpful if the search engine would return less information, but actually relevant to the subject. It's initially pleasant to find a full page of references after entering a search, but extremely disappointing to read through each one and discover that not one of them contains anything related to the search subject. For example, one of the search topics today was how to set up ICS in Win98, since most people still use Win98 as their primary client OS. It's easy, I know, but I haven't done it in years, and the client is a remote location that I'm servicing via email. The search returned topics including a How To... link, but the link led to a page about WinXP. Other entries were links to descriptions of ICS, but containing no instructions. The Resource Kit link led to a Resource Kit online, but it was the original version which didn't include ICS, instead of the Win98SE version which did. This is typical of all searches of Microsoft.com; the returned links are tantalizingly close, but there's no useful content at the other end. I still try it, but I increasingly wonder why. Other search engines on the web invariably find information on Microsoft.com far more reliably than Microsoft's own search engine." Is this in agreement with your own experiences using the service? Or am I unduly harsh. I'm truly not interested in Microsoft bashing - I use their products and have for more than 20 years. But it is frustrating that 5 minutes on Google consistently provides more and better quality information on Microsoft products than hours spent with their own search service. Comments? Some people think of it as a six-pack; I consider it more of a support group.
I also try my best to answer the surveys honestly, harsh or not. I was a sceptic but it seems someone over at MS is actually listening. For example, the MSDN newsgroups have improved quite a bit and they took care of those issues that I remember having complained about. Same with the new hotmail interface, when it first came out there were things about it I didn't like. Guess other people felt the same coz the issues were resolved for the most part. Woke up this morning...and got myself a blog
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I'm curious what others here have experienced when using the MS Search Engine to find technical information. Today I was using it, as I do regularly, to find information to answer a question asked of me by another. In doing so I also agreed to respond to a survey about the experience. I'm sure most respondents just click the boxes and radio buttons and move along, so I was careful to describe my experience when given the opportunity to do so. I think they're making a sincere effort to improve and deserve that input. What I wrote was: "It would be very helpful if the search engine would return less information, but actually relevant to the subject. It's initially pleasant to find a full page of references after entering a search, but extremely disappointing to read through each one and discover that not one of them contains anything related to the search subject. For example, one of the search topics today was how to set up ICS in Win98, since most people still use Win98 as their primary client OS. It's easy, I know, but I haven't done it in years, and the client is a remote location that I'm servicing via email. The search returned topics including a How To... link, but the link led to a page about WinXP. Other entries were links to descriptions of ICS, but containing no instructions. The Resource Kit link led to a Resource Kit online, but it was the original version which didn't include ICS, instead of the Win98SE version which did. This is typical of all searches of Microsoft.com; the returned links are tantalizingly close, but there's no useful content at the other end. I still try it, but I increasingly wonder why. Other search engines on the web invariably find information on Microsoft.com far more reliably than Microsoft's own search engine." Is this in agreement with your own experiences using the service? Or am I unduly harsh. I'm truly not interested in Microsoft bashing - I use their products and have for more than 20 years. But it is frustrating that 5 minutes on Google consistently provides more and better quality information on Microsoft products than hours spent with their own search service. Comments? Some people think of it as a six-pack; I consider it more of a support group.
What floors me about their search (and MANY other non-google searches I've seen on the net) is that it seems to default to OR'ing your search terms, possibly in an effort to give you more results. I must ask, why would I put a term such as "ICS" in a search if I wanted ANY pages to come back that didn't have ICS in them? It's one of those things that just bugs the hell out of me. It's like they're TRYING to make people hate computers. Please, don't hate the computer, hate the idiot that wrote the program.
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What floors me about their search (and MANY other non-google searches I've seen on the net) is that it seems to default to OR'ing your search terms, possibly in an effort to give you more results. I must ask, why would I put a term such as "ICS" in a search if I wanted ANY pages to come back that didn't have ICS in them? It's one of those things that just bugs the hell out of me. It's like they're TRYING to make people hate computers. Please, don't hate the computer, hate the idiot that wrote the program.
Because that is the default and the developers didn't do anything but turn on the basic features. To get a search using index server that I liked, I had to write a preprocessor for the search. It's been a while, but it went something like this. First try boolean search. Next all words Next free text. The first successfull search returned data. You could select specific searches on the advanced page. I did this after checking the logs and finding many boolean searches that were returning crap results with the default options. Unfortunately the MS search ranking is based only on the documents thenselves, so we had to tune the document meta tags to get the rankings that we thought were correct. Google has the advantage of ranking and crawling based on the entire internet so they get links from external sites to MS which is going to be a bigger better ranked set then just an internal crawl will find. I may be working, but I'm not working for you. - Superchunk