WebProNews

MSN/Live Search received a substantial boost to its volume of queries after launching a game site that makes players use Live Search to gain points.

Microsoft Buys Its Way To More Searches

All that money IAC has spent on advertising about Ask.com and the algorithm hasn't helped move the search engine's market share. It turns out that people want free stuff, not billboards, and Microsoft is giving its users what they want.

Online measurement firm Compete found a big jump in search market share for the MSN/Live brand for June 2007. Microsoft's search sites moved from 8.4 percent in May to 13.2 percent in June.

Their gain seems to be Google's loss. Google picked up a hefty 62.7 percent of the market, down from 67 percent in May. Yahoo's 19.6 percent represented a tiny drop from 19.7 percent in May, while Ask dropped from 3.5 to 3.3 percent.

Steve Ballmer and company can thank Live Search Club for the boost, according to Compete's Steve Willis.

"We didn’t see any traffic to club.live.com at all in April," he said. "About a third of a million unique visitors went to the club in May, and in June, this shot up to over 3 million unique visitors."

Live Search Club offers a simple premise. Play games, search with Live to find the answers, earn tickets, win prizes. Microsoft didn't need better search technology, they just needed a carnival barker to boost their search fortunes.

As Willis pointed out, the real trick will be for Microsoft to convert these gamers into regular Live Search users. If they can do that, Microsoft may be able to carve more of Google's search share away.