MSN has created a new version of its search engine and along with that comes a new interface. On first glimpse it looks nice, it’s rather blocky feeling compared to the last iteration and minimalist which is better for load times, but it feels naked compared to Google.

Usability
The new interface is usable, you can get what you need done relatively quickly because they’ve not got a lot of extra interface distractions, but leaves room for improvement. To MSN’s credit they didn’t add an advertisement to the inital search page, which is atypical for MSN, they love to make money on any page they show.

However, the search results page leaves me asking, “Are there only 10 results?” You get your default number of results and then you have to turn your search engine on: you must locate the ‘next’ links. The ‘next’ links were carefully placed in the right hand side looking inconspicuous rather than prominently displayed. To MSN’s credit there are not a lot of ads on the results page either.

Speed
The MSN search speed is pretty quick, not quite as quick as Google, but close enough that most users will not notice a difference. I did not do a benchmark test because I didn’t see that as a huge difference from my user perception.

How Good Are the Results?
I’m not sure how good the results are compared to Google on a full scale comparison because as one guy without some powerful application, I can’t do a head to head comparison. I searched for two phrases I know link to my site from Google: ‘Randy Peterman’ and ‘Women of Walmart.’ The Randy Peterman search returned almost identically to Google, however ‘Women of Walmart’ turned up nothing for my site on the first several pages (at which point I stopped). To MSN’s credit www.randypeterman.com is probably not where most people want to go for ‘information’ on ‘Women of Walmart’ 🙂