Sunday, April 30, 2006

Amazon web search switches to Microsoft

Amazon's A9 and Alexa appear to have switched from using Google to power their web search to using Microsoft's Windows Live Search (aka MSN Search).

I wonder if this is a sign of increasing collaboration between the two Seattle area companies.

[via Google Operating System, John Battelle, Nicholas Carr, and Threadwatch]

Update: Seattle PI reporter Todd Bishop confirms the story.

Update: MSN Search PM Erik Selberg says, "It's a step towards more collaboration between Amazon and Microsoft. It's painfully clear to everyone that the power of Google AdWords and AdSense are on a collision course for Amazon and eBay .... [Google] is a huge threat to Amazon's business."

Update: Danny Sullivan points out that Google ads also have been removed.
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4 comments:

  1. AnonymousApril 30, 2006 at 4:03 PM

    I still get: "Web Results by Google" on A9

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  2. Greg LindenApril 30, 2006 at 4:17 PM

    That's strange. It looks like they switched back.

    I did notice an outage (timeouts) and slowness for A9 web searches around 2:12pm today (Sunday, April 30). Not sure, but perhaps they switched back because of problems with the transition.

    I would guess that any switch back to Google is temporary though.

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  3. Greg LindenApril 30, 2006 at 4:27 PM

    It appears it is back to Windows Live Search on A9 again. The search I just did showed "Powered by Windows Live Search".

    ReplyDelete
  4. Dimitar VesselinovMay 2, 2006 at 6:12 PM

    Windows Live Search. What a "cool name"! Why am I not excited?

    ReplyDelete