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"In fact, there is perhaps too much information out there and what consumers want are results that are tailored to them."

Microsoft says that users want search engines "to be a bit smarter, to know where they are geographically and to alter searches depending on the time of day and if they are at work or at home."

MSN Search, which launches in 24 countries and ten languages today, is designed to give localised results. One feature allows users to ask specific questions, such as "What is the capital of Peru?" and "What is the largest ocean in the world?" with the answers provided by an online version of Microsoft’s Encarta encyclopaedia, which has more than 1.4 million entries. Microsoft is also billing its new product as providing the most up-to-date information by refreshing its list of around five billion websites every two days, compared with every two weeks in other cases.

In reply, Google today reminded users of the vast amount of information its website accesses. "Recently, we nearly doubled the size of our search index to include more than eight billion web pages - all searchable by Google users worldwide. We’re excited about this accomplishment and pleased to share even more of the world’s information with all of our users," it said.

SciVisum found, in a survey of 450 websites, that Microsoft’s "robots" – the programmes that harvest the webpages that search engines list – only picked up a third of the number of pages that Google’s did.

SciVisum also found that the "web results" figure given by MSN Search regularly decreased as users progressed through them, perhaps suggesting that the original number of sites claimed found was an exaggeration of the actual number. This did occur on other engines – but not as often.

On the question of utility, the key factor may be whether a leaner, more nimble Microsoft offering can outmanoeuvre Google's exhaustive directory.

The battle will be ferocious. Google makes 95 per cent of its revenues through paid-search advertising, where clients pay a fee for their website to appear at the head of the list when certain key words are searched. It is estimated that the market is worth some $5 billion a year and is expanding. This month Yahoo, the world's most popular website, said online advertising had reached a key "tipping point" with marketing accounts migrating to the web at the expense of old-media firms.

Analysts at JP Morgan, the investment bank, believes that the paid-search market will expand by more than one-third in 2005 to $7.4 billion.

There is no question that Microsoft has a battle on its hands. Google leads the market by a massive margin. Google.co.uk deals with just over 60 per cent of all visits to search engines in the UK, according to latest figures from market researchers Hitwise. The existing search facility from msn.co.uk, which is operated by a division of Yahoo, has a 10.6 per cent market share. Ask Jeeves UK is in third with 9.4 per cent, followed by Google.com with 6.7 per cent.

Google today professed to welcome the competition. In a statement, the company said: "It’s nice to see that [Microsoft has] recognised the importance of quality search as well ... it’s the users who ultimately win."

Despite Google's statement that "there is room for a number of companies to succeed in this space", the battle for the multi-billion-dollar online advertising market is set to become ferocious.

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