On Tuesday, Microsoft released its new MSN toolbar, increasing the competition in search engines. Experts said this move would encourage a number of new services to go live this year.

Microsoft's toolbar gives users shortcuts to its other services such as Hotmail, MSN Messenger and MSNBC.com, and features tools available on other toolbars, such as a pop-up-ad blocker and a highlight viewer tool - both capabilities of Google's rival toolbar.

MSN's move comes at a time when search engines are improving functionality to attract users, and experts predict further advances. Whether the toolbar will lead to significant gains for MSN is yet to be seen, but its ubiquity may give it an advantage.

Danny Sullivan, editor of Search Engine Watch, said, "Microsoft is already a leader in browser-driven searches. The new toolbar will raise its brand visibility, but overall you're still going to have plenty of people going directly to search engines too. The key factor remains - what's the quality of results a user receives?"

Sullivan said this year there are likely to be many launches from new and established firms in the search engine market, including Eurekster, which analyses users' searches and amends results accordingly. "I see each of the major players rolling out a variety of new features this year," he added. "I think we should especially watch for interesting speciality searches to be offered, such as better integration of yellow page listings, and personalisation, such as what Eurekster is trying to do."

Sullivan said at present there is no clear leader in the search market. "Yahoo still uses Google's results [until it replaces it later this year], so they are pretty much equal. MSN just shifted over to Inktomi, and Inktomi is on par with Google. Overall, I can't tell you definitively which search engine is absolutely the best."