But Microsoft’s ads won’t take on Google, Yahoo, or even Ask.com directly by name. Instead, the Bing ads will try to convince you that by using “today’s search engines” you’re missing out on all that your search experience could be. To back up this assertion, Microsoft offers some internal data indicating 42 percent of all searches need to be refined after the first query, AdAge reports. Furthermore, Microsoft has found 25 percent of all post-search clicks hit the back button instead of a Website link when looking at a search results page.

The inability to find what you want on the first try may be where Microsoft believes Bing has an edge. In March, when screenshots of Microsoft’s new search engine leaked online under the codename Kumo, the photos showed a “related categories” feature on the results page. If you were looking for a set of new stereo speakers, for example, you would see links to reviews, manuals, prices, and so on related to the specific product you were seeking. There were also examples of Kumo/Bing yielding different related categories in a search for entertainers with related categories like biographies, song lyrics, and albums. The ability to refine your search with directly relevant categories could be a very helpful search tool, as opposed to starting all over from scratch with a new query if you don’t find what you’re looking for.

If Bing’s “related categories” feature can offer results directly relevant to your query each and every time you hit the search button, then Microsoft may be able to peel off some, but definitely not all, of that Google mojo. However, Bing’s competitors may already have features comparable to related categories in their arsenals. Google rolled out its own set of tools to help you refine your search at its recent Searchology event, and Yahoo will launch search refinement tools in the coming months.

Whether Bing’s features are a huge jump forward over Google’s new tools or Yahoo’s upcoming overhaul is hard to know, since no one outside of Microsoft has had a chance to try Bing. This week, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is expected to demonstrate Bing during the D: All Things D conference, which runs from May 26 through 28. It’s not clear if Ballmer will announce a launch date for the new search engine from All Things D; however, once Bing is finally available to the public, I have no doubt many people will want to test drive the new search engine. But even if Bing can win over some early converts, the true test will be whether those users are still ‘Binging’ instead of ‘Googling’ a month or two later.

Service is not the only obstacle for a challenger to Google’s dominance, either. To keep users coming back for more, Microsoft must dislodge the idea from the public consciousness that the name Google is synonymous with Internet search. Will 100 million greenbacks be enough to convince people that ‘to Google’ is not actually a verb? Microsoft may think so, but what do you say?

Microsoft May Rename Live Search ‘Bing’: Massive Ad Campaign Planned

The Sunnyvale Web portal said it would carry out the layoffs, the third round in just over a year, in the next two weeks in hopes of saving money and freeing resources to hire elsewhere in the company. Executives said the cuts will be focused on Yahoo’s product managers and engineers.

After three months on the job, CEO Carol Bartz is still grappling with turning Yahoo around in an environment in which advertisers are slashing their budgets. Although she’s made some relatively minor tweaks at the company, Bartz is still weighing several bigger decisions such as whether to team up with rival Microsoft Corp. in search advertising.

Against that backdrop, Yahoo’s first-quarter profit fell 78 percent to $118 million (8 cents per share), from $537 million (37 cents) a year ago. The comparison isn’t quite as dire as it seems, however, because Yahoo’s quarterly earnings in 2008 were helped by a $401 million gain from an investment in Alibaba, a Chinese e-commerce company.

Absent those proceeds, Yahoo’s first-quarter profit would have declined 16 percent.

First-quarter revenue fell 13 percent to $1.58 billion from $1.82 billion for the equivalent period in 2008. Yahoo attributed some of the decline to the sale of its Kelkoo shopping search engine and unfavorable foreign currency exchange rates.

Excluding fees paid to partners, Yahoo would have had $1.16 billion in revenue.

The results met analyst expectations of 8 cents per share in profit and $1.2 billion in adjusted revenue.

Sameet Sinha, an analyst with JMP Securities, said that Bartz has made clear that Yahoo’s revival is no short-term project. The longer it takes, he said, the more pressure she’ll be under to reach an agreement with Microsoft, which has been Yahoo’s on-again, off-again suitor for more than a year.

“Carol Bartz is in there making some significant changes, but she said that it’s not one or two quarters of changes,” Sinha said. “There’s still a long way to go.”

Yahoo cut 1,000 jobs in January 2008, and trimmed 1,500 more in October. An announcement about the new cuts was widely expected Tuesday after leaks to the media last week.

Bartz said she hoped she could make Yahoo more streamlined, in part by reducing some of its inefficiencies in its workforce.

“We sort of had one product management person for every three engineers, so we had a lot of people running around and telling engineers what to do.” Exasperated, she used some of the salty language that she’s known for, but that is rarely heard in conference calls with investors, declaring “But nobody was f- doing anything.”

“Excuse me, I knew that would slip out one of these times,” she said.

Yahoo had 13,500 employees at the end of the first quarter.

Bartz has eliminated several of Yahoo’s minor services, continuing a process started under her predecessor, Jerry Yang, and is contemplating more significant changes. Career site HotJobs is a candidate for sale while Yahoo Maps may be outsourced to another company, analyst Trip Chowdhry of Global Equities Research said in a recent research note.

Last week, Yahoo sold its 10 percent stake in Gmarket, a South Korean e-commerce site.

Bartz has said she wants to focus Yahoo on its core properties, where it is already successful, including its home page, e-mail and finance.

Meanwhile, Yahoo continues to feel the impact of the economic downturn. Display advertising revenue dropped 13 percent. Search advertising revenue fell 3 percent, reversing double-digit growth in previous quarters.

Yahoo’s results contrasted with Google, which is facing some of the same economic headwinds, but nevertheless reported a 6 percent increase in first-quarter revenue.

Bartz said that she is pleased with how Yahoo performed in the first quarter under difficult circumstances and that she expects the business to turn around with the economy.

Yahoo to lay off 675 after profit slides 78%

“TradeComet was forced to file the lawsuit when Google refused to stop engaging in predatory conduct to block search traffic by imposing massive, unjustified price increases,” the company said in a statement.

SourceTool.com had previously complained that Google had given the site, essentially a directory of products and the companies that provide them, a low rating and began raising pay-per-click advertising rates to direct people doing searches to SourceTool.

SourceTool said that Google raised the rates after deciding that SourceTool was a competitor.

“Google raised my prices by 10,000 percent, which strangled our business, virtually overnight,” said Dan Savage, founder and CEO of SourceTool.com and TradeComet.com, in a statement.

“As a result of Google flexing its monopolistic muscle, SourceTool.com currently averages about 1 percent of the traffic it previously had and is no longer a competitively viable business.”

Google had no immediate comment.

Sourcetool says Google violated U.S. antitrust laws