The results are so abysmal there’s no point taking screenshots. What’s that? You want proof? Fine.

Live Search, keywords: windows 7

not on any of the first 5 result pages, couldn’t be bothered to find out where it is. The closest I found was on page 5 with a hit for the EULA page.

Google search, keywords: windows 7

first hit.

Come on, Live Search, I really would like to do a post where you gave the better result. I really really do.

This 3rd post on Live Search vs. Google probably makes me look like I have something against Microsoft. That is no where near true, and to make it up to them I’ll soon be posting a rather positive one about their Windows Live Messenger.

Live Search, keywords: Live Messenger
 

Google Search, keywords: Live Messenger

Goal: to download Windows Live Messenger.

With minimal keywords, Live Search failed to give me satisfactory results: the first result is almost completely off, second result is satisfactory although the displayed url throws things off with ‘addyahoo’ at the end, and the remaining top hits are rubbish.

With the same keywords, Google got it right on the first hit. It even provided sub-results for it, including a direct link to the Download page. The following top hits are also close if not correct.

Seriously, Microsoft? Is this the search engine you are trying to use to take back the web? Sure, I could have searched for “Windows Live Messenger” instead, but shouldn’t your search engine recognize your own product even if I miss the “Windows” in it? Google not only found the product, it guessed correctly that I was trying to download it. Sometimes I wonder if Google reads my mind, but then I realize that that’s sillytalk.

Sometimes I wonder if Microsoft is even using their own products to test their search engine.

Attempt #1, keywords: Zune Theme

Note that the first link, zune.net, while it’s the official Zune website it does not have a download link for the desktop theme. So..

Attempt #2, keywords: Zune Desktop

Attempt #3, keywords: Zune Desktop Theme

I knew that there was an official download link from microsoft.com which I wanted to use, so the last result shown above in the 3rd attempt (download.com), was not acceptable. Note that there eventually were similar download links in later search results (for all 3 attempts), but just not the one I wanted.

A little frustrated, I decided to see how Google would fair.

Attempt #1, keywords: zune desktop

There we go.

Just in case you’re wondering how the other keywords would work on Google,

Now, I’m not saying that Live Search sucks completely. It’s had its (rare) moments for me. However this case is especially surprising since the thing I’m looking for is not only a Microsoft product, but hosted on the microsoft.com, and yet it failed to show up as the first hit, or even the first 5 hits. Something is wrong here, no?