Microsoft will step up its battle with Google later today when it launches its own internet search engine. But listing a full page of Google links must count as a blunder in the software giant's campaign for web-domination.

Google, the market leader in the multi-billion-dollar online advertising market, owes its popularity to the deft algorithms it uses to prioritise search results and its carefully cultivated "alternative" image. The company's code of conduct has been boiled down to three worlds: "don't be evil".

Microsoft's MSN Search will have to tackle Google on both these levels if it is to succeed. However, when a Times Online reporter conducted the obligatory vanity search and typed his name into the Microsoft site today, ahead of its official launch at midnight New York time, he was faced with a page of results comprised exclusively of pages from Google.

The result begged the question: "Why bother with MSN in the first place?"

Deri Jones, test services manager at SciVisum, the web testing company, said: "This is very surprising. You would assume that Microsoft would have a filter in place to prevent something as extreme as this happening.

"Looking at this page of results you would think these two companies were partners - not competitors."

MSN's "Google-friendliness" must surely count as a blunder. This is despite Microsoft having made progress since Times Online ran its own (albeit unscientific) roadtest of the site on the day of its soft launch in November. Then, in the 30 minutes Times Online spent testing the long-awaited MSN search engine, it broke down eight times. This time the site worked well.

In a repeat of our November test, we again placed ourselves in the shoes of a tourist planning to visit the place with the longest name in the British Isles, but was unsure of how to spell Llanfair-pwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.

In November a search for "Llanfair" on Google immediately brought up 94,800 websites, the second of which included the full name that we were looking for in the explanatory text below the link. A search for the full name then brought up more than 9,000 websites – again instantaneously. In stark contrast, searches for both the terms caused the Microsoft site to stall for a few seconds before the "search" engine announced: "This site is temporarily unavailable, please check back soon."

This time around, Google found 97,000 pages in a fraction of a second. Microsoft found 63,273, again in the blink of an eye.

Google perhaps should pick up a bonus point for including at the top of the list a link to a map of our searched-for town, but there was little to choose between the two services. True, Google found more than 50 per cent more pages than MSN Search. But who needs - or has time to trawl through - close to 100,000 web pages?

This has formed part of Microsoft's thinking. Matt Whittingham, head of information services at MSN, said: "I think consumers, maybe two years ago, were wowed by the fact that you could enter a relatively obscure search term and you would get hundreds of thousands of results.

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