January 10, 2008

Odds are today you've already used the Internet to search for something — maybe doing a quick price check on a prospective Christmas gift or a follow-up query to something you heard on the radio on the way to work.

At Inside MSN, we often field submissions like Danielle's entreaty, shared from Lynbrook, N.Y.: "Help!! You recently had an article on your homepage regarding what to do when your neighbor's house is an eyesore. My husband and I are desperate to read it. Thanks!" 

Danielle was not speaking about the garish holiday excess some homeowners display this time of year, but all the same we want to ease her frustration by finding what she wants. Since its debut in August, an enhanced search tool has been ready to help with queries like Danielle's.

These days, you can narrow your hunt by specifying Web, MSN, Images, News, Maps, Shopping or Video. (And once you search, you can get to a list of even more refined ways to search, which is handy, given that search engines earlier this week reported the size of the Web exceeds 24 billion pages).

From atop the MSN homepage, the big green button adjacent to the search field says, "Search Web." If you type (without quote marks) "neighbor eyesore" or "home eye sore" (notice "eye sore" is not input as a compound word), and then click on "MSN," the search returns the specific article from MSN Real Estate that Danielle wanted.

Refined search is one way we're trying to balance the need to keep the homepage fresh with the desire to provide readers with a way to find the relevant content they want and need. In a typical 24-hour weekday period, homepage editors may exchange virtually all of the content zones.

This pleases the people who think we don't update enough, but it doesn't help users like Leslie of Lebanon, Ohio, who calls for "a link back to the past week or so to find past articles, like an archive."

Archiving the homepage and having the links remain clickable is a sizable technological endeavor. As a step toward an alternative solution, the MSN search gurus goosed the search engine.

"We have only finite space on the homepage," explains Rajesh Srivastava, a group program manager charged with optimizing MSN's search returns. "The next day — or even the next hour or next 10 minutes — there's little way to find what people want. So we implemented this search, scoped not at a channel level but across most of MSN."

Now, someone like Elizabeth, of Spartansburg, Pa., can search by targeting MSN content only. In September, she wanted to use an archive to find the "story on MSN about funny websites."

A smarter search helped her find the story without the need for a complete (and technologically cumbersome) archive.

Live Search also can help to decipher the mysteries of search — even for this column. One search manager tried to explain ongoing efforts by writing "especially we want to make sure that the actions are not orthogonal to what Live Search (like most search engines) is doing."

Plop the word "orthogonal" into the search box, and you immediately learn that adjective is a synonym for "perpendicular." So, in translation, the various MSN departments are toiling to stay atop the ever-widening Web, without duplicating efforts.

But, as with every endeavor involving billions of pieces, progress is not as fast as many of us would like. For instance, we still can't easily help Anna of Wilmington, Del., who in August wanted to re-read a story about "dating someone from a different culture." MSN's Dating & Personals channel relies heavily on partner content that is not yet easily accessed via the special MSN-wide search.

However, that and other improvements are on tap for 2008.

Meantime, we hope you'll use the search function to find articles that deserve a second look. We aim to be your go-to resource for whatever you need. Let us know how we're doing by using the comment box atop this page.