Microsoft has finally released its much touted Live Search Webmaster Central to public beta. It’s been a long journey for Microsoft’s answer to Google’s Webmaster Central but sadly, despite the preparation and the hype Live Search’s Webmaster Central didn’t quite match up to Google’s. I would have to agree with Search Engine RoundTable that indeed Microsoft has a long way to go with the tool.
Just by looking at the first page of the Live Search Webmaster Central, you’d immediately know what kind of information you’d get from the site. There’s this air of shallowness in the initial screen and you’d prove that right as soon as you start exploring the site. If you’ve been using Google’s Webmaster Central, you wouldn’t have a hard time using Live Search Webmaster Central as well. In fact, you’d yearn for more features and useful stuffs.
If Google is in the post –graduate level of education, Live Search is in primary school level. Just to give a good example. Where as Google will tell you how many inbound links you have for a particular post on your blog, Live Search Webmaster Tool would only give you the top 10 posts in terms of number of inbound links. Now, who says that is useful?
Another example is if Google’s Webmaster Tools would give you the top search queries/keywords which drove traffic to your site, Live Search Webmaster Tool would ask you to enter a specific search keyword which you want to monitor. And the results are not impressive as well. As it will only give a ranking of the search keyword vis-à-vis the particular pages or posts in your blog/sites.
These are just two examples of the shortcomings of the Live Search Webmaster Tool. I know it is still in beta stage and hopefully improvements would happen soon. But, don’t we wish that since Live Search is already late in coming out with this kind of tool, it should at least have been released with features comparable to its fiercest competitor.
No wonder, there was not much hype and buzz when it was release out of private beta.
