Relevance...Is it Relevant?

As we they judge them on the brand. Whatever brand we happen to prefer, I think our default search engine is what we consider the most relevant. And yes, for many people, that is Google. But not everyone.

Google has made relevance so fundamental to search that it’s now a non-issue. There is so little difference among the relevance of search engines that being relevant isn’t a unique selling proposition or the distinguishing factor. Right now, it’s the brand. Google has associated its brand with relevance—and it’s a given that all other search engines will have to be relevant to compete. But MSN’s new relevance (and touting the relevance of their results may sound impressive to search marketers (and really, I’m sure that that is a large part of the Live Search blog’s audience), it’s a far less convincing argument to the people you really need to convince—users. And so far, it’s not working.