Microsoft intros new product search service

By Steve Malone

Posted on 8 May 2006 at 10:43

Microsoft has taken another step towards matching its search competitors with the launch of its own product search engine based on its Windows Live search technology.

Known as 'Windows Live Product Search', the service sifts web pages for matching products that are for sale and provides information on products, prices and vendors. Microsoft says it is particularly useful for hunting down those hard-to-find products.

Searchers are further able to refine their searches by Related term, Brand, Seller and Price. The service also contains features such as image expansion hover and a level of detail slider.

Developed by Microsoft Research Asia, the Product Search integrates new algorithmic product classifiers and information extraction technology into the search system. The development team behind Product Search emphasises this is still very much a beta product and is in the process of adding extra features which include product ratings reviews, item clustering and a bigger selection. Microsoft says that currently, the index contains products from some 100,000 vendors.

The product differs from Shopping Live which is more of a competitor to Google's Froogle and Yahoo's Kelkoo where vendors submit their product databases to the index, although Froogle does also include an element of search. In many respects the new Microsoft service resembles Google Base, although, as yet, it does not allow sellers to add their products to the database directly.

Of course, the biggest site for hard-to-find products is eBay. The launch of Product Search may make Microsoft a more attractive suitor to the auction giant. Last month eBay was rumoured to be negotiating a search partner deal and the prospect of adding eBay's sponsored links and even its database of items for sale will do Microsoft's chances no harm at all. However, Redmond will need to convince eBay that Product Search will not become a direct competitor like Google Base.

The service is currently aimed at an American audience and at the time of writing we had not heard when or if a UK version is due. You can find the beta at the Windows Live website

It has also been announced that Microsoft has bought the 15-year-old DeepMetrix web analytics company. Google made a similar move when it launched its own web analytics tool using technology it bought along with Urchin in March 2005. The DeepMetrix technology will be used as a companion tool to customers of Microsoft's new AdCenter targeted advertising service.