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Live Search 411 has very similar functionality to GOOG-411. It is a voice-navigated free information service, powered by the recently acquired Tellme, that you can get to by dialing 800-CALL-411 on any phone.

Much like GOOG-411, you can find any business in a city and state of your choosing, then get its information and a map sent directly to your cell phone via a text message. You can also search by business category and connect directly to the business that you select.

The number is not yet active, and right now, you will get a coming-soon message if you try to call, so I cannot yet evaluate the service's ease of use or quality.

While Google was first to launch its 411 service and has already begun a billboard-advertising campaign in San Francisco, this is still an important launch for Microsoft. To compete with Google, the software giant needs to keep pace.

This is just one more Microsoft service that matches Google's offering. With the release of its much-improved Live Search 2.0 a few weeks ago, along with this release today, it's clear that Microsoft wants to take a real shot at dethroning the search giant.

Microsoft Press Release

Search is a constantly evolving and changing entity, and this year has certainly seen more than its fair share of change. Possibly highest on the list has been the move to blended or universal results. Much of the focus and discussion has revolved around Google Universal, but they aren't the only game in town and all the majors have now entered into blended results to some extent or another.

This presents interesting opportunities and challenges. Those who focus on developing a fuller and broader Web presence, adding video, news, blogs, images, local content and social media to the mix, greatly increase their opportunities to gain rank positions across all the engines. The challenge however will be that the results across the engines may become even more varied, as each engine puts its own spin on the blending.

It's still very early in the game as the engines continue to ramp up and tweak their algos as they evolve and introduce searchers to blended results. It will be interesting to watch the evolution of blended search across the different engines. Today, results vary within the engines. Some searches show little to no signs of blended results, and others, show considerably more.

For an interesting example, let's take a look at a single search across the engines and see how they compare. Since we are talking about how blended search is evolving, what better search term than "cavemen" to use as a test. It is an interesting term for our test because it has such a wide frame of reference and actually poses a rather interesting challenge for the engines. Depending on the searcher, it may carry very different connotations:

• Prehistoric humans
• The definition of the word itself
• The ad campaign for the Geico commercials
• The newly launched sitcom on ABC based on the Geico commercials

Here are screenshots of that search in Google, Yahoo, MSN (Live Search) and Ask. It is interesting to see the variety of the impact of blended results across the engines, from very little to considerable impact. As you experiment with different searches though, you may see the engines' position on this scale shift up or down.

Along with calling out some of the specific blended results, I've also noted some of the refinement options, such as related searches, narrowed or expanded searches, and Yahoo's new "Search Assist."

Ask.com SERPs.

Google SERPs.

Yahoo SERPs with Search Assist.

MSN Live SERPs.

While the survival of the new Cavemen series may be in question, the continued evolution and survival of blended search is without doubt.

Web site owners and SEOs alike often feel at odds with the search engines, but times are changing. This was often the case in the past when the engines made updates and changes to their algorithms that seemed to send Web sites into a SERP tailspin, leaving everyone scrambling to regain their precious page-one positions. The engines were also a lot less forthcoming with information and guidance, perhaps taking the view that giving this information gave too much power to the spammers and phishers.

While this view was understandable on the surface, it didn't float all that well in reality. In the real world, those who are out to game and manipulate the engines may have as many or more resources to keep up with the engines than "the rest of us." So over the last few years, the search engines have continued to be more open with what they consider important as well as what abuses may get sites into trouble, perhaps realizing that there are also a lot of sites that may not have been purposely trying to mislead the engines, but were just victims of bad advice. And of course the algorithms have become far more powerful and fine-tuned than they once were.

By openly helping everyone, they are really just helping to raise the bar of quality for all sites, and maybe even making it even harder for bad sites to game the engines. Along with providing more detailed information and answering more and more questions publicly, the greatest advancement they have made has been in creating tools to actually give site owners (who have validated their sites) more information about their sites than they've ever experienced before.

Webmaster Central and Webmaster Tools

Google introduced Webmaster Central, which continues to add more and more features for site owners. Not surprising, Webmaster Central is leading the pack in delivering great information and tools to Webmasters. At the center, literally, is Webmaster Tools, which provides site owners with fairly detailed information on site crawling, queries, considerably more backlink information than can be queried outside of Tools, and much more. The query information in particular provides an unprecedented view of the search phrases that a site is showing up for, including those terms that aren't actually delivering traffic to the site.

Site Explorer

Yahoo's Site Explorer is still lacking in a few areas compared with Google's Webmaster Tools, but they almost make up for that with their powerful link information. Through simple drop-down menus, it is quick and easy to tailor results based on links to a specific page or the entire site, to include all links or to exclude links from the site and focus on external links only. Yahoo added a new feature that may give even more control to site owners. The Dynamic URLs tab gives site owners the ability to inform Yahoo of their site's dynamic URL patterns to help eliminate duplicate content issues, better handling of multiparameter URLs, addressing session IDs, and even presenting "cleaner" URLs in search results. Ideally, it would be best to address as many of these issues through rewrites and the robots.txt file on the server, but this is a great addition as a backup or for when that isn't possible.

Webmaster Portal

Trying not to be outdone, the Live Search team at MSN recently announced their entry into the mix with the Webmaster Portal, currently in beta and by request only. Little detailed information is available, but their tool also is claiming to help troubleshoot crawl issues, assist with sitemaps, and provide site statistics, including a replacement to the "link:" operator query that was decommissioned back in March. The portal is slated to be fully available to the public by late fall, but it may be worthwhile to request an invite to participate in the beta now.

The advancement in all of these tools is great news to Webmasters and SEOs alike. They continue to put more information and control into our hands. Not wanting to be outdone by the others, hopefully each of the engines will add each other's additions to their own toolsets. As each of these is free, there is no reason for site owners not to take a few minutes to validate their sites and start spending a little time each month putting these tools to work for them. This is one invitation from the spiders you don't want to turn down.

Microsoft has overhauled the look of its Live.com search page, part of a series of changes expected in the coming weeks.

While the first visible changes are to the user interface, fonts and look of the Live.com search page, the bigger changes are coming to the engine itself, as well as the way Microsoft presents results. (Props to the folks over at Liveside.net for spotting the changes.)

Microsoft has scheduled a press event, dubbed "Searchification," for September 26 at its Silicon Valley offices, where it is expected to tell all.

But we'll keep watching to see if more details squeak out onto the Web. If you see more changes, let us know.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Microsoft just released Tafiti, a Silverlight- and Live Search-powered search engine experiment. TechCrunch asks the question that matters: Will people use it? Their answer: Probably not.

But it's worth checking out, because beneath its glitzy user interface are some cool experiments that could easily be implemented on a more plain-Jane search site. I like the "shelf" on Tafiti, where you can drag search results that you want to save or look at later. And I like the stack of search queries that Tafiti collects as you use the site; other engines record your search histories, but Tafiti shows us it can be done better.

Tree view: Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

More prosaic (but still pretty) features include a secondary "filter" field that lets you easily winnow down search results and different display formatting for results from the Web, books, news sites, and RSS feeds. There are also "blog this" and "e-mail this" options for results you save on your shelf.

There's also a highly experimental--borderline silly--"tree view" of search results. This view goes into my running list of weirdo search technologies.

Tafiti is a Microsoft open experiment, not a Google killer. But Google should take notice: With Tafiti, Microsoft is telling us that a search site can be useful without being dull.

On Tuesday, Microsoft began releasing photographic 3D renderings of landmarks in New York and a few other cities via its Live Search Maps site.

In November, the company released Virtual Earth 3D in beta, along with the API and a software developer kit for people who wanted to create 3D renderings for Live Search Maps. At the time, people could also view 3D terrain and some three-dimensional buildings in a few cities. The release of New York in virtual 3D marks the first major effort by Microsoft to create an almost complete rendering of a recognizable city.

Microsoft's attempt at 3D views of famous landmarks is a little more manageable and realistic-looking than the one offered by Google Earth.

For one, the 3D view will work through your Web browser, and that includes Firefox as well as Internet Explorer. You will have to download a Microsoft Virtual Earth add-on and restart for Firefox, but after that, you're good to go. Anytime you go to Live Search Maps you will be able to switch to a 3D view.

Another contrast to Google's rich-media versions of famous places is that Microsoft's 3D objects are photo-based.

In addition to the new 3D views, Microsoft has also launched real-time maps of traffic and construction. The maps show construction areas as hazard signs that offer detailed explanations for the holdup when you click on them, in addition to a color-coded system for identifying minor to major traffic congestion.

As with the Google Earth project, only certain cities and landmarks are currently available in 3D, though Microsoft says it plans to add more.