MSN Live Search Adds Two New Search Features

Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Wednesday, 24 of October , 2007 at 11:28 am

The crew at Live Search is getting better at deciphering user intent. Two new features allow the Live Search team to deliver search results more relevant to a searchers actual quest based on the keywords they use in their search query. Let me explain:

AutoSpell Correction is the newest feature implemented at Live Search. Instead of asking you “Did you mean _______” as Google does when you have misspelled a word, Live Search will just deliver the correctly spelled results for you, which puts you one step closer to what you’re looking for. According to the Live Search blog, this only happens when they are absolutely sure that you misspelled a word.

The second new feature of Live Search is called Stemming. This feature allows Live Search to match the root, or stem, of a word to the search results delivered, as opposed to matching the complete word. For example, if you type in “motorcycle Winnipeg” then your search results page will return results that include the word “motorcycles.” Based on user feedback, Live Search figured out that the singular form of the word would not produce as accurate results so they’re making it easier for users to find what they want.

Both of these are useful features and make Live Search a better search tool. So you see, Google doesn’t have a monopoly on all the best search ideas.

Category: Search Engines

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