Microsoft's MSN unit has taken its beta search engine live at the MSN.com production site. Some users noticed Friday that search results have been branded with the "beta" logo, which indicates that MSN is scaling up its tests beyond the beta search site.

The new MSN search engine is being developed in-house by Microsoft and will be used in lieu of Yahoo once the code is finalized. At that time, the beta tag will be removed from the site.

Earlier tests were hindered by outages while the search engine was hosted at a special address specifically for beta testers. Although, during those initial stages of the test, MSN was able to index over 5 billion Web documents.

"Some may notice that we have been recently scaling up and scaling down the MSN Search beta service," Just Osmer, MSN product manager for Search, told BetaNews. "This continues to be part of our testing process as we near the final version and incorporate user's feedback. Until we fully launch the site, you may expect to see various changes occurring."

Microsoft has pledged to considerable resources toward the development of search technologies, and in a sample of things to come, has unveiled a desktop search, as well as tools for searching blogs and news sites.

"Our timeline is driven by the quality of the service. When we feel the product has effectively incorporated the consumer feedback we receive, we will release the final product," said MSN's Osmer.

MSN faces stiff competition from competitors such as Google, the reigning search king, Yahoo, as well as America Online.

SearchEngineWatch.com editor Danny Sullivan predicated that the introduction of MSN's search engine to the actual MSN.com Web site will not bring any immediate change to the search market.

"The general public is unlikely to immediately flock over to MSN and start switching. There will be another round of press, awareness will grow, and then we'll see gains, losses or even no change over the coming monthns," said Sullivan. "Gains if MSN proves the technology to be better than Google and Yahoo; losses if it is not and no change if it's as good as the others. It's watch and see!"