Microsoft has released yet another version of its Live Search, taking into consideration critical data such as user research, customer feedback and other data as well. However, this time MSN's focus has been entirely on the design of the Live Search. According to the Live Search Blog, the new version will greatly enhance user search experience and has also been given a face-lift.

Continuing from the last update that Microsoft had applied to Live Search Products last week, yet another critical update has been patched into its Live Search Products Service.

According to the Live Search Blog, the users would be able to perform research and find suitable deals on the products displayed within Live Search. Microsoft's new update also gives the flexibility of refining products depending upon various factors such as user opinions,.brand, prices and categories. The users will also be able to sort results by best user, expert ratings and prices.

Microsoft has announced the launch of an update to its browser based mobile search. Simply called 'Mobile Product Search', it enables a user to search for products using the Live Search on their mobile devices. MSN Live Search displays results for product queries available in its affiliated Online Stores.

The search results also include prices, ratings and reviews. Users will also benefit from the rating methodology adopted by Live Search for its product search based on features and ease of use.

From now on Live Search will know which celebrities take your breath away and how often you search for them. According to Live Search Blog, MSN Live Search has launched the 'xRank Celebrity'. This service ranks all the celebrity related searches carried out on the Live Search Portal. The xRank Celebrity is currently operating in Beta Phase.

Some of the salient features of this really cool service are:

During the closing months of last year, there were complaints from many webmasters not Live search not indexing their sites, and there were others who complained that their sites were unfairly banned, see: Where Do You Complain If MSN Banned Your Site Unfairly. In addition to this there were several sites which would have been thought to have ranked well but were not.

Microsoft's announced today several improvements in the crawler for Live Search, stating that the improvements “should significantly improve the efficiency” with which the MSN Bot crawls and index web sites.

The latest improvements entail:

HTTP Compression: HTTP compression allows faster transmission time by compressing static files and application responses, reducing network load between the user's servers and Microsoft's crawler. It is supported by the most common compression methods: gzip and deflate as defined by RFC 2616 (see sections 14.11 and 14.39). The compression is being supported by all major browsers and search engines. You can check your server for HTTP compression support using this online tool.

While the winters and the snowfall is in full fury and the adrenalin rush for boarders and skiers is on its peak, Live Search has come up with relevant weather reports for those who plan to go out skiing on their favorite locations and mountaintops.

Microsoft has launched a new site, Left vs. Right, which shows two highly animated opponents of the political spectrum on a crossfire. Representing the left is Patrick O'Neil and Britt Hayes is featured from the right wing, both are throwing political comments on each other viz. 92% loaded, Faith-Based, Tax Reform, Go-Green, Imagination, War on Terror, Living Wage, Patriot Act! Cut and Run!, More Lies! NWO and more.

Picture Credits: Left vs Right

The Windows Live Blog reports that Live Search Maps has been launched in China. With this new application, users can not only search China but also the entire world.

Microsoft seems to be regionalizing searches observes Woz on a thread on Webmasterworld. He says "just noticed today that it seems to be regionalising results automatically. I.e., being in Australia, live.com is automatically serving results focused towards, but not necessarily from, Australia." However he also observes that "They have added an "Australia Only" tick box which indeed does only return results from Australia, but there seems to be no simple way of turning off the regioanlisation for general results." Why not? One may ask, are they still testing it.