According to results initially obtained by The Wall Street Journal, web metrics firm Keynote Systems was hired by Microsoft earlier this year, shortly after Microsoft decided to stop licensing search engine technology from Yahoo. Executives at Microsoft reportedly wanted to know if their decision to use Microsoft’s own technology in MSN would affect the search engine’s relevancy.
Keynote surveyed 2,000 Internet users in its study, looking at search relevancy results when users keyed terms into different search engines. In studying how relevant results tended to be for users using MSN, Keynote reportedly discovered the search engine had dropped from the No. 3 spot in terms of relevancy to No. 5, compared to an earlier study conducted before Microsoft made the technology switch.
The results came shortly after Internet metrics firm Nielsen//NetRatings reported search queries had dropped 4 percent on MSN, whereas they had risen 6 percent and 9 percent on Google and Yahoo respectively.
The fact that the results from the Keynote survey were not publicly released has left many familiar with search engine technology displeased with the idea that such results could be suppressed.
“The next time Keynote trots [out figures] I'm going to be sitting here dubious if I should even trust them,” Danny Sullivan, editor SearchEngineWatch.com, wrote after hearing of the study.
Representatives at Keynote deny Microsoft had anything to do with the survey not being published.
“Microsoft did not quash [anything]," Dan Berkowitz, Keynote spokesman, said. "There are many studies that we do not release."
Berkowitz said all of the websites discussed in the study had purchased the results so there was no need to market the survey, something metrics companies often do to boost sales.
“There was no compelling reason, either business or otherwise, to release the results of this study,” he said.
Representatives at Microsoft, meanwhile, claimed they asked for the study not to be released because they found “issues” with the study’s methodology. No further explanation was given.
At the same time, the competition between leading search engines only continues to heat up, especially with Microsoft’s frenzied attempts to catch up to the phenomenal success of Google, which has made a killing selling text advertisements embedded in its search results.
Microsoft’s own version of text advertising, called AdCenter, is still in development.