Microsoft tries to one-up Google PageRank
Though a distant third place to Google, Microsoft thinks it can teach its rival a thing or two about searching the Internet. — A big part of Google's rise to search engine leadership was an algorithm called PageRank that assesses …
Context & Ripple Effects
Microsoft’s challenge to Google extends a competitive ambition visible in its earlier push to trounce Google. It also arrives as Microsoft is continuing to spend on a money-losing online-services business and reorganizing the company, making search quality a concrete test of whether that investment can narrow Google’s lead.
First-order effects
- Microsoft directs its search effort at the ranking method associated with Google’s lead, making relevance quality the immediate point of comparison between the two companies.
- Google gains a named challenger to PageRank’s approach, while Microsoft must demonstrate that an alternative produces search results users prefer.
Second-order effects
- Microsoft’s ongoing online-services spending becomes more closely tied to search differentiation rather than advertising alone, raising the pressure on its reorganization and marketing efforts to support the search business.
- Search users and advertisers face a sharper contest over which engine returns more useful results, because ranking quality influences where queries—and the associated ad inventory—concentrate.
Third-order effects
- If rival ranking approaches can meaningfully differentiate results, web search competition shifts from brand and distribution toward proprietary relevance systems as the core strategic asset.
- The episode belongs to a market structure in which a leading search engine’s ranking method becomes both the benchmark rivals target and the mechanism they must displace to win usage.
The trend: Search competition is concentrating on ranking quality, with Microsoft seeking to turn an alternative to Google’s PageRank into a route to challenge the market leader.