Windows Live Product Search and Windows Live Academic Search mimics functions already available on both Google and Yahoo.
Windows Live Product Search closely resembles Google’s Froogle service, enabling surfers to compare prices on products and search by category, brand, retailer and location.
Search results also will do a few things Froogle doesn’t do, such as yield product reviews, articles, discussions and buyers guides, according to LiveSide, a blog sponsored in part by an award Microsoft gives people who help promote its products.
The company would not comment on a timeline for adding Product Search to its engine.
Academic search, which will begin beta testing in September, allows for searches of academic articles and white papers, with options to purchase for download.
In recent months, Microsoft added an image searching feature similar to Google’s.
However, Google may be staying more than a few steps ahead of Microsoft in the search arena, thanks to the acquisition of a new technology developed by an Australian student.
The technology is an algorithm designed to recommend the most relevant keywords for performing a search and prioritize the relevance of results. It finds pages with content strongly related to a keyword, then returns a section of the page and lists related searches so the user can choose the most relevant.
The text abstracts save surfers the trouble of visiting each website sent back through a search to see its relevance and gives the user additional search criteria, ultimately helping to refine a search to pinpoint results.
Google has not announced a schedule for testing the new algorithm.