MSN proudly holds the top position in producing relevant search results, according to a recent study released by search marketing firm IntraLink.

250 searches were conducted on the major search engines and were based on five main criteria:

• Relevancy (number of exact matches on the first page)
• Freshness of content
• Failure rate
• Performance during difficult search results
• Non-organic or extra features

MSN ranked first with a relevancy score of 19 out of 25, followed closely by Google with a score of 18. Yahoo! and AOL both achieved relevancy scores of 13, whilst Ask.com trailed behind with a score of 11.

Eric Gurr, President/CEO of Intralink dispels the theory that both Google and MSN are unreliable in delivering relevant search results.

“Many have accused Google of an emperor’s new clothes situation. No one wants to say he’s not wearing any, or that Google just doesn’t deliver relevant results. This is simply not true. Others have said MSN is like a search engine from five years ago filled with spammy advertising laced sites. This is also not true,” Mr Gurr wrote on seoresourcecenter.com.

According to the study, searches conducted on phrases such as Condoleezza Rice article, West Highland Terrier breeder and Global Warming article found that Google, AOL and MSN contained the freshest content, whilst Ask.com displayed the oldest content.

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