Does MSN Live Search matter? In a nutshell, YES. This is especially true for search marketers, as it may be the last major search property left that is not partnering with Google for search ads. Ask.com has been backfilling their ad inventory with Google for some time now; and with Yahoo! potentially partnering with Google, that leaves Microsoft with the last major independent search property.

What does this mean for search marketers? Well, it means that by just buying into Google AdWords your ads will most likely get coverage on Google, Yahoo! and Ask.com. These search properties combined cover an estimated 85-90% of all U.S. search traffic, leaving MSN somewhere between 10-15% (depending on which data you look at). The real distinction with Ask.com and Yahoo! was that each provided unique value (usually lesser costs-per-clicks) than Google. With multiple engines now using Google ads, the majority of those savings may be lost. And without those savings, why not make life easier and just deal with one engine in the future? It will lower the time associated with collecting data from multiple engines, it will help to quickly organize data as information will all be in the same format, and it will simplify the billing process as you will only have to deal with one vendor. Sounds like a good time-saving idea to me.

We could argue that MSN Live Search does not provide the traffic volumes that Google or Yahoo! can, but what I have found with many of my clients that track engagement metrics after the click is that MSN Live Search usually produces some of the least-expensive, most-engaged traffic I get from any engine.

So, does MSN matter because it is a good search engine, because it is unique in some way or because it brings more relevant results? Maybe, maybe not. But the bigger picture about why MSN Live Search matters is because it represents the last truly independent competitor in search to the ever expanding Google Empire.

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