Today we saw an update to the new Live Search xRank, with its homepage having a major revamp:

The official team blog have posted an entry about xRank, but not entirely describing all the new features that were included in this update. So here we will outline some of the new features:

• xRank Today – this is shown on the screenshot above, featuring the top 10 movers on Live Search xRank in the past 24 hours, popular topics section (similar to the Tag Cloud here on LiveSide on the right), and summary sections for each of the four categories: Celebrities, Musicians, Politicians, and Bloggers
• xTreme Movers – ranks the top search keywords on Live Search in terms of search volume movement in the past 24 hours, and also showing search volume graph of each of the top search keywords in the past 30 days. Here’s one for LiveSide: note how we came first on September 18! [<:o)]

• Comparison – allows users to compare two persons in the same category over their xRanks over the past 30 days, here’s an example:

• Videos, Images, and more – images were there before, but now xRank results displays any related videos (and yes it includes the live mouse-over preview clips as well), and any other related info as well! For example, if you’re searching for a musician, then it will display any related albums’; or if you’re searching for a movie actor, then it will display any movies that he’s been in. Here’s an example for Mariah Carey:

That’s some good stuff coming from the Live Search team trying to make things more relevant. But of course, there’s a lot more work to be done, and it’d be interesting to see how Powerset will boost Live Search’s market share and make their search results more relevant.