During the Search Marketing Expo conference, Kevin Johnson, president of Microsoft's platforms and services division, hinted about a possible change of the company’s “Live” brand.

In Johnson’s opinion having multiple identities for the same online services such as MSN Hotmail and Windows Live Hotmail or Windows Live Messenger and MSN Messenger is confusing for the users.

In addition, Johnson explained that a brand “fix” is needed as Microsoft decided to drop its bid for Yahoo and improve its Live Search engine, the Associated Press reported.

Launched in 2005, Live Search, Microsoft’s effort to catch up with the web giant Google, replaces MSN Search in 2006. Despite the company’s efforts, Live Search acquired only 11 percent of the search market, far behind its main competitor, Google.

Last year Microsoft’s Live Search has gone through a major technical update, dubbed as “the biggest update since our debut in January 2005.” Redmond’s engineers have focused on improving the relevance and they apparently achieved that by quadrupling the size of Live Search’s index.

Microsoft said at the time that it had come up with a new way of extracting data from the Web which automatically adds information from specific domains to the data base, including ratings and reviews; businesses (locations, contact information, photos, hours of operation, ratings and reviews); celebrities (buzz, images and videos) and more.

In the past two years, Microsoft has launched several online services branded as “Live” such as Windows Live Hotmail or Windows Live Messenger.

Last month, at advance08, Microsoft's annual advertising customer event, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates unveiled the company’s latest trick to attract the users to use its search engine: Microsoft Live Search Cashback. The idea is simple: the users who wish to buy something can use Cashback to find their desired object. In case they complete a transaction, Microsoft’s program will reward them with cash rebates ranging from 2 percent to 30 percent.

Those users who are willing to enroll in Microsoft’s Cash Back should sign up for a Live Search cashback account at the time of their first purchase. They will receive the rebates in their cashback account directly from Microsoft 60 days after completing purchases.

However, two days after the launch of Live Search Cashback, Microsoft has pulled the plug on its Live Search Books and Live Search Academic projects.