Microsoft's Search Surges, Thanks To Prizes

Microsoft's bold move to offer prizes to users of MSN Live Search is paying off: for the first time since its inception (almost), MSN Search is showing growth. According to Web metrics firm Complete, MSN's search volume increased a whopping 67%, from 8.4% of total search queries in May to 13.2% in June. Perplexingly, the Information Week report doesn't include Complete's numbers (perhaps there weren't any to publish) for Google and Yahoo, but it does mention data from Amazon's Alexa, showing that Google's search volume fell from 67% of total queries in May to 62.7% in June. Yahoo's share, meanwhile, fell a negligible 0.1% to 19.6%. Of course, comScore published markedly different numbers, underscoring the mess that is panel-based Web measurement, and there was no indication of a month-month drop for Google or pop for MSN. More ...