HOWZAT

Next up a query about the 'Hanseatic League', the centuries-old, northern European trading association. Again, the sites are reasonable fairly evenly matched, with Google probably a nose in front. Both accent Wikipedia, unsurprisingly, as well as an apparently comprehensive amateur history site.

Where Google adds depth with a couple of academic sites, however, Live picks up a couple of very thin encyclopaedic sites - and, embarrasingly, given that it's the top link, an excited 2006 press release from a council in West Norfolk. (Last year, apparently, King's Lynn became the first British town to join the Hanseatic League. Not that the world seemed to notice, although it may do if there's a spike in searches on the 'Hanseatic League'.)

A shift to a query about a political event throws up a discrepancy: whereas Live elects to spread news stories through its 'web results', Google keeps its 'web' and 'news' results relatively separate.

A clearer distinction between the engines emerges with a purposely ambiguous search like 'world cup australia england'. Live's top three listings in 'web' are: a BBC news story about last year's football World Cup, a site selling football and rugby T-shirts and an ITV match report from the recent Rugby World Cup. Then comes a Cricket World Cup news service, more rugby news and a YouTube clip showing Jonny Wilkinson's winning kick from the Rugby World Cup in 2003.

Google, by contrast, offers up-to-date news stories from a range of reputable sources about both the cricket and rugby world cups. When the user shifts to news-specific results, each story on the list is accompanied by a picture, which is a nice touch.

Live.com is also shown up in a search using terms like 'buy' and 'insurance', which typically skew results because of the extent to which opportunistic site owners 'stack' their sites to respond to them. A search for 'buy home insurance uk' on Live, for instance, offers among the top ten hits the following: www.home.co.uk, www.home-insurance.co.uk, www.buy.co.uk, www.homeinsurance-home.co.uk, www.home-insurancefacts.co.uk and www.homeinsurancesaver.co.uk. In the same search on Google, Churchill, Endsleigh, Halifax, and Norwich Union all figure on the first page.

Based on a week's usage, this reviewer wouldn't say Live.com is about to land any punches on Google, at least in search. Google updates its index of the web's content too regularly, and with too great an attention the information it gathers from its millions of users on a minute-by-minute basis - for Live.com to be able to compete just yet. As in so many areas, however, Microsoft's deep pockets mean it will be in for the long haul. So no one, not even Google, would be wise to turn their back to its armies of technologists for long.

THE RIVALS

Ask

Ask has undergone the most comprehensive transformation of Google’s main rivals. For those who haven’t been back since the site called itself Ask Jeeves, the current landing page is a pleasant surprise. Like Google, it has a simple layout and a lot of white space, but Ask’s use of bold Arial text and rounded icons gives it a cleaner, more modern look. The grey frame is also an unusual and attractive effect.

The results pages have also been given a makeover, offering links to videos, music, images and blogs in a panel at the right-hand side of the page, and a brief blurb from Wikipedia at the top. This works very well for certain type of search, particularly if you’re looking for celebrities, and in comparison the Google results page looks much less rich.

It’s not all good news, though. The results it produced were slightly more erratic than Google’s, sometimes bringing up unexpected sites. A search for the tech fair “CES 2008”, for example, returns an unofficial site with information about the event above the show’s own website. A similar search on Google finds the official site in poll position, with six subcategories of results from the site arranged conveniently underneath.