I don't know if you've seen it already, but I kinda like this new SE by MSN.
http://rwsm.directtaps.net/ - although it's only beta and does not have the complete database of pages that search.msn.com has, It brings nice results (actually not fine by me as far as my keywords) and they seem to come from the most updated MSN SE datacenter.

Another great plus is that they write you on the side - simliar keywords that were searched by their popularity.
enjoy.

very interesting results from this, will be interesting to watch what M$ does with it.

What is it - a search engine or a toolbar? Is it intended to be used as a search engine, or is that just the demo of what you get if you install the toolbar?

It's using a small database at the moment, so it remains to be seen how the useful the left column will be when it has a full index to go at. At the moment the left column is useful. Or have I missed something.

I think that this Beta has great potential - if it incorporates the full database.

I like the idea of seeing the related searches and volume on the left hand side.

Looks to be both, no idea what their plans for its future will be.

At first I thought the numbers on the left were searches, which would have been very useful, but I was wrong.

What I don't like is the inability to click back to the homepage after doing a search.

I've installed the toolbar. With the "clustering" button selected, it produces the results we see on the website. If it's off, it returns the full MSN results. I think I'll keep it installed.

One thing I do like with the toolbar is that, regardless of whether or not the Clustering button is selected when a search is made, just clicking it goes at gets results from the other setting. I.e. if you searched MSN, then clicking the Clustering button goes and gets the clustered results, and vice versa.

The English on the website leaves a little to be desired, and the spelling in the toolbar does too. One of the Options is "Open a new window to diaplay results each time" - my bolding

I am pretty sure if its adapted into the main msn stuff that wll all be corrected :p

I'll have to load that tool bar and play with it but it Looks like MSN may be pushing Googles button pretty hard with this one.

Results seem pretty damn decent on the searches I have tried so far.

I like the results and the left hand menu. I’m downloading the toolbar now.

Well I like the results too, but then I have had a #1 ranking on MSN for a long time.

The results are not too dissimilar the the main MSN rankings, and maybe when the whole index is used, they will be no different except that it has the left column stuff.

Results are not that different, but they come from the most recently updated data center.
Yesterday night I've lost my #1 place for some one else and in the regular MSN it appeared only at night, while I've seen it comming with this search about 5 hours earlier.
Never mind the fact that the regular MSN search last night was giving different results for different CAPS in the search.

I think eventually it will be integrated and only then they will update the full database in too it (or a couple of days before - to check it).
Very nice tool, hopefully will be completed soon.

Wow, I love it, nice find dondor!

I've just realised something. I'm probably the last to realise it, but I usually get there in the end

The left column listings are not what I first thought. I'd thought that they were alternate searches on similar topics, but they aren't, and you can't go wandering through them into other related topics. What they are is described perfectly in their heading - Result Map.

The original search produces a set of results (196 at the present time), and the links in the left column are simply other ways to focus the same set of results. They don't get a new set of results for a new search from the engine. The system examines some data about each of the 196 original results, and decides on some common areas of focus. It's those that are presented as links in the left column, and clicking on them produces results only from the original set, and only those that contain something about the area of focus. That's the reason for the "Others" links. The are pages that don't fit into any of the identified focus areas.

It looks like the focus clustering is based solely on the Titles and Descriptions.

I'm at a slight loss with this one. Is it doing anything above what clustering metasearch engines - e.g. Vivisimo and qksearch - have been doing for some considerable time?

Vivisimo will even let you carry out a clustered search on just the MSN search engine and although different, the results are certainly not worse than the MSRA Beta version.

I've never looked at a clustering engine before, so I can't compare them. But having realised what this one is doing, my interest in it has waned - it's suddenly become a very simple concept, and not one that I think is useful.

If it sorted the focus areas from the initial results, and then did real searches on them, instead of only displaying pages from the initial set, then I think it would be much better. Perhaps they are thinking of something like that for the future.

You should do a link check. IT even catagorizes those by type of site that is linking to you. Very interesting. Wonder if that will play into MSNs rankings?

now that's an interesting point.

That could change the entire MSN SE as we know it... Alot of reciprocal links programs will not be relevant and many purchased links will have no use as well.
Well, I like the idea

Quite an interesting design there. I like the suggestions on the left hand side. They might even impliment UK search results as well.

They are not suggestions in the way that I think you mean, Nicky.