Live.com Is Not Passing Referer Information

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September 15, 2006

Live.com Is Not Passing Referer Information

So MSN Search Switched to Live.com the other night. Guess what... Live.com is not passing referer data. I.e. you will not know what type of traffic you are getting from live.com. You won't know you got 10 or 100 or 1,000 visitors from Live.com. You won't know what keywords they searched on in Live.com to find you in the free results. You won't know!

MSN Search did pass referer information, but Live.com is not, at the moment at least.

I verified this with my stats from yesterday, nothing from Live.com and I know I used to get some MSN Search traffic (which has now been replaced by Live.com).

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

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posted rustybrick in Microsoft MSN Search at September 15, 2006 7:51 AM Comments (13)

Comments

I just checked and I don't see any referrals from MSN (or Live.com) since 09/12/06. I just made a test search there and it doesn't have a referrer.

Interesting. I wonder how long it will take them to fix this. ooops!

martin

Posted by martin - webseo at September 15, 2006 10:43

Search Industry to MSN:

JUST MAKING YOUR SEARCH ENGINE PRETTIER DOESN'T MAKE IT NOT SUCK. Spend some time making your algorithm return useful results, THEN work on its candy-licious-ness.

You'd think the massive drop in MSN Search usage since the last redesign would be a little hint. But, alas, no. They continue to be morons up in Redmond.

Posted by Andrew at September 15, 2006 12:41

Confirmed by my clients. MSN has been showing some great results with respect to PPC lately and not being able to track how many visitors we get through Live means I can't show revenue from organic traffic. [We usually just use the same conversion rate as the PPC campaigns even though I believe organic converts at a higher rate - a whole n'other topic.

Posted by webmama at September 15, 2006 13:07

I'm seeing HTTP_referer data now. I wasn't able to test earlier, but as of 2PM EST I'm getting referer info.

Posted by Tim at September 15, 2006 14:12

If you see a referer from live.com in your logs, chances are that:

a) the user had JavaScript support disabled in his/her browser;

b) the user was using Opera, the only browser I've tested so far that is able to pass referer information through the JavaScript code used by Windows Live Search for SERP click tracking.

Posted by Everfluxx at September 16, 2006 08:26

Well, the user was in fact myself using Firefox without no JS or other odd disablings... However, using a different PC this afternoon I cannot see referer info.

Then again, a moment ago via remote access, I was able to repeat the same exact search and see referer data of http://beta.search.live.com/results.aspx?q=... (same as yesterday)

The only difference in setup is ISP.

Posted by Tim at September 16, 2006 14:12

If they actually passed any measurable traffic this might be important.

Posted by Aaron Shear at September 17, 2006 12:26

Hmm... Today I saw a referral from MSn...in my stats,.... Did they fix that,,,..???

Posted by Kichus at September 20, 2006 01:37

Is there only referer diffrence or any thing else
between MSN and live.com ?

Posted by webmaster at September 23, 2006 05:18

MSN and live.com support?

Posted by Sergio at November 4, 2006 02:38

I've found some interesting entries in my website's logs. Today "something" has entered from 131.107.0.95 and 131.107.0.96 (Microsoft) and what is in referrer? Yes, search.live.com an queries with keywords like: lesbian, chevrolet etc. My website is of course not connected with such a keywords.
Do you know something about it? Maybe some worm?

Posted by Abdul at January 25, 2007 07:22

I too just got a hit from 131.107.0.96 which is a search for "BMW" on Live.com. I don't know what is going on but my website is not even indexed yet.

Posted by optimizer at January 28, 2007 20:17

I also got a lot of "noise", check my post here: http://www.seohacking.com/2007/05/16/is-live-going-to-crash/

Posted by SEO Hacker at May 16, 2007 05:40