Via Threadwatch and SELowdown, news that Alexa is now powered by MSFT Live, rather than Google. Here’s a screen shot of Alexa (via IA, natch) last year (powered by Google)…
…and here’s a snip from the service now.
I’ve pinged Bruce Gilliat at Alexa to ask about this, but as I’ve said over and over, Amazon and Google are on a collision course. This is an interesting development.
Updated: A9 is also now powered by Live.com. It’s on.
What is interesting is that it says “powered by Windows Live” and not “MSN”. Microsoft is hitting hard with Windows Live and its’ Alexa Rank is showing that. Today, April 30th, live.com has an Alexa Rank of 13 for the day.
What is so unfortunate, is that ALEXA users are probably TECHIES/GEEKS/SEOs……Most of those prefer Google.
Politics have signaled the decline of Many throughout history. User Base should always come first.
MSN has made dramatic strides in relevancy in the past year….but it is still no Google. People search for relevacy not for ‘politics’.
As John noted earlier, Amazon is up to some *really* destabilizing stuff with web services. I attended Jeff Barr’s excellent but almost empty MIX06 presentation that proved that few developers are tuning in to what’s cooking at Amazon, but it’s really going to get interesting as robust new search tools crop up from unlikely places as well as the usual suspects MSN, Yahoo, and ASK, all of which are looking better every day.
John, alexa moving to live search has nothing to do with your theory of friction between amazon and google.
Alexa is a small start-up kind of company which is immatarial for google. Alexa knows that to be successful they do not have to fight but want to have the best technology.
As it turns out, if you remove branding glasses from your eyes, Live Search is a better search technology than google.
Sure Google has more marker share. But then windows has more than Mac, though people do not necessarily derive the conclusion that Windows is superior to Mac. After using Google/Yahoo for years, I started using Live Search beginning this year. I think Live is noticably better than Google.
Microsoft knows this otherwise they would not mistake in putting a search box in ie7.
I think it’s pretty funny to just compare the design of the “powered by XYZ” area. Googles was small and minimalist (like their site). Whereas the MS one is much bigger and force-feeds you their logo. Sorry, but adding a logo doesn’t make the search results any better.
Also, maybe I’m too jaded, but I’d be willing to bet that the above ‘anonymous’ comment comes from an MS employee…
A9.com results are also powered by ‘Windows Live’ instead of by Google.
Could this change have anything to do with the fact the (now former) CEO of A9 jumped ship to Google? You take our CEO and we stop licensing your search engine?
Will more jump ship when MS completes its new IE7??
probably whats gonna happen now is that goog is gonna launch their kick-ass Alexa version soon. why not, they got the traffic and the money