In an attempt to keep up with Google, Microsoft has now decided to acquire Powerset after it failed to acquire Yahoo. This is another effort by the technology giant to gain an advantage over Google as far as web search is concerned.

Powerset is expected to develop a better way of searching the internet. According to source, the system uses what they call a “semantic Web” technology which works to generate results on the basis of the meaning of the word and how it was used in the string. This is far different from how search engines these days generate results, which is mere keyword matching.

On July 1, Microsoft announced its acquisition of Powerset’s shares through a blog and was quoted as saying that its vision is “to take search to the next level by adding understanding on the intent and meaning behind the words in searches and webpages.” Microsoft invested more than a hundred million for this endeavor, although the purchase price is still confidential.

Here is another effort to keep up with Google. This new approach to search may prove to be more attractive to many users who are expecting more detailed answers. Surveys show that users appreciate getting search results that are more relevant to what they are really looking for and the semantic search seems to provide just that.

One of the main selling points that Powerset and semantic search has is that the technology is going to be difficult for Google to incorporate in its present system. Adopting a new technology would entail starting from scratch and disregarding the effort and length of time it took to scan and index millions of webpages. It’s going to be a challenge to have to start all over.

This is probably an edge that the technology has against large and established search engines. The technology has been a subject of research and development over the past decade so it seems that Microsoft has made a good decision in acquiring this particular technology. The technology giant may end up having to rescan its pages, but for a big company such as Microsoft, this wouldn’t be a huge cost issue. If it was ready to come up with a $46 billion offer for Yahoo, surely it would be able to afford a small cost for investing in servers that will rescan the pages.