Microsoft knows the secret to putting a stop to Google’s dominance on the search engine market: give users more useful search results by going deeper into search queries. The idea was expressed by Satya Nadella, senior vice president of Microsoft’s Search, Portal and Advertising Platform Group, during his 2008 Search Engine Strategies Conference & Expo keynote.

Nadella admitted that Google is undoubtedly the lead search engine on the market today, but there are ways to catch up. Microsoft attracts only a small portion of Internet searchers, and considering the deal with Yahoo went nowhere, the company is still struggling with a distant third place.

According to Nadella, almost half the users spend 30 minutes on a search session for a particular object, and this is where the true possibilities to grow come in. Such in-depth search operations should give Microsoft the opportunity to return tailored responses for the search queries.

The most important thing is to understand user intent, said Nadella, adding that establishing search patterns and using them to shape the search experience is what Microsoft needs right now. Instead of just using information from the previous search performed by a user, Microsoft is intending to expand that information to several more search queries, to better understand what results the user needs.

Another aspect that is very important to Microsoft right now is the semantic search. The first step was to acquire Powerset: Microsoft plans to develop with Powerset’s help an engine that will understand a significantly larger percentage of the searches’ intent, the words’ meaning and also the context of the users’ demands. The end result should lead to a far better Web site search experience for users and of course, massive financial gains for Microsoft.

However, Microsoft has a long way to go, and Google is still in advantage. As Steve Ballmer admitted last month, Microsoft needs more relevant adds, which is what differentiates the current market leader from other search engines. Google has more advertisers in their systems, which means “they have more opportunity to serve up a relevant ad.”

“Search is interesting, it's not content, it's not community, and it's not commerce, but search is an important part, it's sort of a killer app, if you will, for this new world,” Ballmer said. “It's a starting point to the world in which everything has moved to be digital.”