With the introduction of new sites like WolframAlpha, Duck Duck Go and Hakia in recent weeks, the search engine market place is getting more crowded by the day -and it appears search engine optimization (SEO) companies will see yet another player next week.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that unnamed sources say Microsoft will unveil its new search engine next week at the D: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, California.
John Paczkowski of the Digital Daily blog from the D: All Things Digital website says that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is slated to appear at the event and it appears likely that the new engine, code-named Kumo, will be unveiled then.
The latest results from comScore show that Microsoft has a lot of room to make up in the search engine race. In its April 2009 rankings, comScore reports that Google maintains a huge lead in the marketplace with 64.2 percent of all searches – up 0.5 percent from the previous month.
Microsoft comes in a distant third with 8.2 percent, behind Yahoo’s 20.4 percent share.
Various media reports say Microsoft is ready to unleash a massive branding campaign behind the new search engine and an estimated $100 million campaign which is expected to start next month.
