Brief Background About Live.com Product Search & Uploads:

Recently, Live.com launched a products search service that ties directly into their previous MSN Shopping interface. Live.com Product Search is currently in Beta and is similar to Google Product Search in that you can upload items via an easy to use interface similar to Google Base. To use Live.com Product Search simply apply for a Live ID, create your account and login to your Live.com Product Uploads account. Once the account is approved and activated merchants can choose whether to upload their products one at a time or via a bulk upload file and FTP. Google Base users can even use the exact same .txt or .xml file format that they use for Google Product Search uploads.

Live.com Adds a Products Onbox Area Similar to Google’s Onebox:

Today I was surfing like normal and happened across a results page on Live.com that looked strangly similar to something I see often within Google’s search results, a Onebox for products. For a minute I even forgot I was searching on Live.com since the results and layout were so strikingly similar to Google’s Onebox results on product specific queries.

Live.com has really been beefing up their search results and relevancy lately and this move comes as no surprise to many in the industry, however I don’t think anyone expected to see things move along so quickly.

Once I discovered this new search result I decided to jump over to Google and try the same search there.

Compare Live.com Products Onebox With Google Product Onebox Results:

First I search for “nikon digital camera” on both Live.com and Google, let’s see what each of them recommend …

I noticed that Live.com brings attention to their Onbox area by using a simple “checkmark icon” as opposed to Google’s “shopping bag icon.” Both Oneboxes show the prices next to each of the items in the list and both also show the product name/product title within the listings. Google Onebox shows the website or company name in association with the items, but Live.com chose to leave website/company names out of their products Onebox. Another difference is Live.com tells searchers how many times each item appears within the results on MSN Shopping, meaning if I search for “nikon digital camera” and get a page with 10 results I will see each cameras megapixels, whether it is digital or not and how many coolpix cameras show within results.

Example: Nikon Coolpix 5600 - digital camera 5.1 Megapixels 3 x $99.95 (See the screenshot below)

Live.com Product Onebox Screenshot:

Google Product Onebox Screenshot:

Conclusion & Final Thoughts:

I am glad to see that Live.com is spending time and effort to improve their users’ search experience and the relevancy of results shown. Now in addition to getting listed within Live.com Product Search and MSN Shopping services only, you can gain additional exposure for your eCommerce store by getting discovered in Live.com Product Onebox on Web searches.

Live.com is free comparison shopping service offered through Microsoft and Live.com. They may not be as large or as well known as Google Product Search (formerly Froogle), however they still send tons or referral traffic and potential customers who are interested in finding and comparing items they may want to buy or recommend. List your products on Live.com and as many other comparison shopping engines as possible to round out your other marketing and promotion efforts.