MSN Live Search has added some new features to its Live Search. Besides the fact that most of the search results by Live Search end up pretty much as what the user is looking for, still Microsoft wanted to refine the user search experience. According to the Live Search Team Blog, the MSN Live Search has a fresh new look and has also focused on website suggestion features. It now looks for more relevant results by delving deep into the search results. The update to the Live Search will now enable the Live Search Crawlers to burrow deep into the search results to dig out and suggest relevant sub-pages in accordance to the search query. This feature is quite similar to 'Google Sitelinks' where search results included a set of links below them to pages within the website. This feature that has now been incorporated in Live Search Results analyze the search results and find suitable shortcuts enabling the users to find what they are looking for without investing a lot of time.

In a Webmaster World thread, one user asked how to complain if MSN banned a site due to unfair reasons.

To this, MSNDude replied:

"http://support.live.com/eform.aspx?productKey=wlsearch&ct=eformts"

So far, many users are fed up of MSN's reinclusion methods,with some of them even saying that "Once burned, twice shy. Ask for "help" at your own risk, if you dare."

MSN India re-launches with a cutting-edge new design and new options and features. One of the new options include choosing either to view a narrow or a wide layout.

Andrew Hoppie, executive producer, MSN APAC, told AgencyFaqs, "India is one of the first markets with a fresh home page. We are creating individual home pages for different markets. We analyse the traffic and make sure we have relevant content." For instance, the MSN Japan site has an earthquake monitoring module – information useful for the locals. Hoppie adds that the MSN China home page was re-designed in July and has led to a 40 per cent increase in traffic after the change."

As seen on Agencyfaqs!, MSN India, the third-largest portal in India, continues its upgradation of services to corner a larger share of the market. Having the latest version of Windows Live Hotmail with 5 GB free storage space, the company has recently introduced some new services like 'Sky Drive', 'Live Messenger' and 'Live Spaces'.

In a recent state newspaper, it was announced that the state-owned Chinese partner of MSN, Microsoft's online services group, desires to sell all its holdings in the China-based joint venture.

Shanghai Alliance Investment was behind the formation of the Shanghai MSN Network Communications joint venture with Microsoft in May 2005. Now it is looking for appropriate buyers since last month. Both parties hold 50 per cent of the venture. Shanghai Alliance Investment is run by Jiang Mianheng, a son of former President Jiang Zemin. It is believed that the reason behind closing the partnership is the unclear business model of the venture.

Sometimes back in march, MSN/Live took their link: operator offline? Well MSN is now planning to open up that information once more with the new name “Webmaster Portal”. In fact, just some days after when the “link:” operator offline was closed, a small team was formed in Redmond. The team's main focus was to work on the next-generation set of tools, content and resources for SEO professionals and webmasters. Webmaster Portal is a single, friendly place to look for all tools and information relating to Live Search SEO. According to the official release, initially it will support the following categories:

Just last week aQuantive shareholders approved the company's acquisition by Microsoft which was the latter's final hurdle. Now Forbes says 'Today, it’s officially part of the Redmond family'.

“Some expect yet another overhaul of Microsoft’s online ad operation as it integrates the $6 billion acquisition—and as it continues to search for the right combination of execs, tech and strategy to make its ambitious plans pay off.

After MSN was reborn as Live.com the search engine giant refused to even acknowledge its erstwhile name. Now, things have taken a different turn. ResourceShelf reports that Live.com Adds Link to “MSN Sources” at the Top of a Search Results Page.

ResourceShelf :- "We noticed that a new permanent link (unlike others that can be toggled on and off) to MSN (like MSNBC, Encarta, etc.) is now included at the top of Live.com search results page.

The Live Search team announces three more features in Live Search images.

Now, along with regular images you can also specifically look for face portrait and black & white.

Samples of the new features are”

1. without the new features – jimi hendrix
2. with new face filtering on – jimi hendrix filter:face
3. with new portrait filtering on – jimi hendrix filter:portrait
4. with new black and white filtering on – jimi hendrix filter:bw

The monthly search percentage numbers released by Complete.com has got some shocking results. In this recent June Search Share it shows that Microsoft is the biggest gainer. Microsoft has shown a drastic improvement with MSN/Live increasing their query volume by 67% from last month and an impressive 48% from June numbers a year ago. The overall increment in the percentage has been attributed to their online gaming requirements of coming through their Live Search Club.