Entries from Search Engine Roundtable tagged with 'live search'

Bing's Fake Referrer Spam Back, Now Hiding Referrer Now?

The years and years of Microsoft polluting web logs with fake referrer data, which they have 'fixed' numerous times, including a couple weeks ago. We had confirmed reports from webmasters that Bing was no longer showing up in the log...

Did Microsoft Finally Fix The Fake Referrer Spam Issue?

Brett Yount from Microsoft's Bing Webmaster team has commented here and in a Bing Forum thread saying the issue with the fake referrers being generated by MSNBot has finally been fixed. By finally, I mean, an issue dating back over...

Microsoft Bing Still Spamming Fake Referrers In Webmaster Log Files

I normally don't get upset when I report about bugs with search engines, it is what I do. But I am really getting upset with Microsoft and their webmaster support with Bing, really. For the umpteenth time, Microsoft said they...

Microsoft Claims To Fix Fake Referrals or "Single Word Query" Complaint

Last night, Microsoft Bing representative, Brett Yount, said that they have rolled out a fix for the fake referrals or single word query issues people have been noticing. Brett said: We released a fix last night that should take care...

Bing Classifies Cloaking Detection as "Single Word Query" Issue

Last week, we reported on what appears to be more cloaking tests by Bing, where referrer data for websites are being spammed (by Microsoft) with fake data. There have been more and more complaints about this in the Bing forums....

More Cloaking Tests In Form Of Fake Referrers From Microsoft Bing?

A recent thread from the Bing Forums reports one webmaster noticing 150 plus referrers from MSNBot with the referring search query of "donate." They always come from a search result of www.bing.com/search?q=donate. The thing is, his site doesn't rank well...

Bing's Traffic Spike From Fake Spam Tests?

There has been a lot of Bing buzz on how the 'new' search engine is competing in the search landscape. But is that traffic all legit? Remember, since April 2007, Microsoft has been sending weird referrals to many webmasters. They...

Microsoft Takes New Search Engine, Bing, Live Early

The wait is over, Microsoft's new search engine, Bing is now live. It was rumored to be going live on June 3rd, but it went live some time early this morning. Techmeme is buzzing on the launch and Microsoft seems...

Microsoft Getting Ready to Launch New Search Engine - Kumo? Bing? Live? MSN?

The exciting topic from last night was that Microsoft is demonstrating their search engine next week at the D: All Things Digital conference. It is expected that the search engine will go live at the SMX Advanced conference a week...

Live Search's HTTP Headers Malformed

Microsoft is having a rough couple weeks. First they shut down their tests that is causing fake referral data from being spewed out and now I am hearing reports that their HTTP headers are malformed. A WebmasterWorld thread reports Microsoft...

Microsoft Disables Fake Referral "Feature" Temporarily

The ongoing saga of Live Search's fake referral data to possibly conduct cloaking experiments has been shut down temporarily. The official Microsoft representative has told us in a WebmasterWorld thread that it has been shut down. He said: I just...

Global Live Search Local Listings Coming Soon

Live Search Maps is still gaining ground and currently, the only businesses that can verify their listings are those in the US. For US businesses, you can go to Live Search Local Listing Center and update your listings. But if...

Microsoft To Fix Fake Referrer Data From Live Search

Since August 2007 Microsoft has been sending out weird referrer data to people's log files. The spam like referrers were official cloaking tests from Microsoft and should have been resolved in 2007. But they came back in January 2008 and...

Microsoft Testing New Search Beta in Japan Named Zenbu Kensaku

Bill at WebmasterWorld found a new MSN Japan search engine named Zenbu Kensaku at http://zenbu.jp.msn.com/. I don't read or understand Japanese, so let me quote you his comments: This new search engine beta actually will work with a lot of...

Reaction: Microsoft Testing New Search Features: Code Name Kumo

Microsoft Search, MSN Search, Live Search, Windows Live Search, and now Kumo? Yea, Microsoft is still finding themselves with a brand for search. Currently, Live.com is the search portal for Microsoft, but everyone knows they have issues branding that portal....

SEO Targeting Different Countries? Use Different Domains

A common but difficult question was asked at HighRanking Forums about the issue of targeting different countries. My advice for when it comes to targeting different countries is almost always to have two different sites on TLDs (top level domains)...

In Past Two Years, What Has Changed Most With SEO?

A HighRankings Forum thread has a very interesting topic just getting started. The thread creator asks, "What Has Changed In Seo In Last 2 Years?" This is a great question. People think that SEO tactics are always changing. You need...

Tips on How to Get Indexed Faster by Google, Yahoo, & Live Search

A WebmasterWorld thread asks for tips on how he can get his site indexed and crawled faster by Google. The thing is, most, if not all, of these tips apply not to just Google, but any search engine, such as...

MSN adCenter's Content Ads Showing Horrible Click Through Rates?

Brent Csutoras published results of his Microsoft ContentAds test by accident. I wasn't able to see all the results because he pulled them after being notified that he is not allowed to share any stats because he is in a...

Live Search Begins Crawling JavaScript with MSNBot-Media

incrediBILL, moderator at WebmasterWorld, noticed that one of Live Search's bots was crawling through his JavaScript. The bot is named MSNBOT-MEDIA and he noticed that it was accessing JavaScript files and AJAX functions. He noticed that the bot was triggering...

Live Search December 2008 Holiday Update?

I am seeing reports at WebmasterWorld of a possible Microsoft update to Live Search. Senior member, bwnbwn, said it looks like Microsoft is jumping back and forth between two indexes. He said: It looks to me that there are 2...

Live Search Adds Malware Reporting to Webmaster Tools

Microsoft has added malware reporting to Live Search Webmaster Tools. This comes after a significant update just months ago from Microsoft. Now you can easily see if your pages or pages you are linking to contain malware or not. If...

See How To Save 25% On Holiday Gifts With Microsoft Cashback

Let me start off by saying Microsoft did not pay me to write this post. I am only writing it because I think it will save you all money for the holiday season. I personally bought something on this yesterday....

Is Microsoft Live Search Being Rebranded?

Rumor has it -- as reported on Search Engine Land and Liveside -- that Microsoft is rebranding its search under the name kumo.com. According to the reports, kumo.com is owned by Microsoft and points to search.live.com nameservers. It also provides...

Is Microsoft Live Search Crawling More But Indexing Less?

I spotted two thread this month discussing how little Microsoft is indexing their sites but how often Microsoft's bot, MSNbot, is crawling their sites. A WebmasterWorld thread and DigitalPoint Forums thread has details of the newish behavior from MSNbot. BillyS...

Best Place to Get Webmaster Help for Live Search

Microsoft has been really focusing on building out support and tools for webmasters for their Live Search product. It is beginning to show. A DigitalPoint Forums thread reports one webmaster who has been trying to gain assistance for two years,...

Microsoft and Facebook Partner for Search

The Live Search blog announces a partnership between Facebook and Microsoft for search and ads. You can now either "Search Facebook" or "Search the Web" using Live.com. Additionally, adCenter ads will be delivered alongside those search results. So far, it's...

Small Live Search Update or Hiccup?

We have two WebmasterWorld threads and a DigitalPoint Forums thread discussing a brief update and bug with Microsoft's Live Search. We know the last Microsoft Live Search update was about 15 days ago. So it does seem a bit early...

Live Search September 2008 Update Underway

A WebmasterWorld thread is reporting early signs of a major Microsoft Live Search update. The rankings, indexing and algorithm seems to have updated. First reports came in from senior member, textex, at 9:30am (EST) yesterday. Since then, other members began...

Live Search Greatly Improves Webmaster Tools But Webmasters Don't Give a Hoot

Microsoft has spent a considerable amount of time and resources building out enhanced features to the Live Search Webmaster Tools. They announced releasing the new features this week, but it has gone, pretty much, unnoticed in the SEO and webmaster...

Microsoft Live Search Gets an Interactive Redesign

In case you didn't know, Microsoft Live Search has been redesigned: WebmasterWorld members are appreciative of the new change. It's different and unique. But wait ... there's more. If you hover your mouse around certain areas, you can see where...

MSN Live Sending Odd Referrals -- QBHP -- to Websites

Six months ago, we reported that Microsoft Live Search was sending spammy types of referrals. Rogerd reports on WebmasterWorld that he's not seeing the same types of referrals we reported back in January, but he's finding some even stranger ones....

Is Microsoft Not Serious About Webmasters?

A WebmasterWorld thread asks if Microsoft is not serious about webmasters. Why? Well, if you use Live Webmaster Tools and you click on "Add Site," you will see funny messages. For example, when they ask for your email address Microsoft...

Tracking Search Traffic Versus Content Traffic in Microsoft adCenter

Since the tide seems to be shifting and more and more advertisers are opting for Microsoft adCenter over Yahoo Search Marketing, I thought I share with you a recent adCenter related thread from WebmasterWorld. Let's say you wanted to track...

The Tide Has Shifted: Microsoft adCenter Begins to Outpace Yahoo Search Marketing

First there was Goto.com (aka Overture.com) as the leader in PPC by advertiser spend. Then Google outpaced Overture. Overture was bought by Yahoo and Yahoo's Overture (now Panama) secured the second place in advertiser spend. Well, now, it seems like...

Major Live Search July 2008 Update

A WebmasterWorld thread has new chatter about a possible Microsoft Live Search update that is taking place. The reports are very new, but also extremely significant. Here are some quotes from some webmasters noticing the changes at Microsoft: Has anyone...

Microsoft adCenter Customers Get Premium Organic Listing Support in Live Search?

A Search Engine Watch Forums thread has a member complaining that after he signed up with Microsoft adCenter, he noticed his site was removed from the Live Search index. For those that do not know, adCenter is the search ad...

Microsoft Live Search April 2008 Update?

There is some recent additional chatter in the WebmasterWorld thread, that was discussing the Live Search March Update, from late March. It appears from the chatter that Microsoft is either still working out the kinks in the past update or...

Microsoft's Live Search Rep Violates WebmasterWorld's Terms of Service

The other day we reported on the March 2008 Live Search update. Most of the feedback was that Microsoft took a step backwards in relevancy and spam and their new index is poor, to say the least. MSNDude, Microsoft's Live...

Microsoft Live Search March '08 Update

It seems like there was a major update over at Microsoft Live Search. The update appears to have begun some time yesterday morning. The update was suppose to loosen up the spam filter a bit to allow the crawler to...

Searches Down Month-To-Month: Google Gains Slightly More US Market Share

comScore released February 2008 U.S. Search Engine Rankings which showed that month-to-month, search volume was down about 6-percent from January 2008 to February 2008. Here are the stats on that by engine: At the same time, Google gained slightly more...

MSNBot Again Failing Reverse DNS Test

Last December, we reported that MSNBot was failing a reverse DNS lookup. Well, guess what folks - MSNBot is failing again on some IP addresses. An updated WebmasterWorld thread brought this to my attention and I verified it myself. Here...

MSRBot Bot, Microsoft Bot Causing Havoc on Some Servers?

There are two recent threads in different forums complaining about search engine spiders from Microsoft. A WebmasterWorld thread is specifically complaining about MSRbot, Microsoft's research bot, for attempting to crawl pages that don't exist. The other thread is from DigitalPoint...

Microsoft Live Search Does Site Links Also

Many of you probably already know that Microsoft's Live Search has been displaying "Sitelinks" under the first search result for some queries for a while now. In fact, they have been doing this since the Microsoft Searchification Day 2007 in...

Microsoft Live Search Says Admits They Were Too Tough on Sites: Making Algorithm Less "Strict"

Ever since the last quarter of 2007, SEOs and Webmasters have been complaining about not being indexed in Live Search. In short, many sites that were once indexed and ranking in Live Search were no longer. Plus, many new sites...

Microsoft Live Search Adds HTTP Compression & Conditional Gets Support to Crawler

The Live Search Blog announced several updated to their crawler. The first is a name change to reflect the upgrade, previously named msnbot/1.0, it is now named msnbot/1.1. The bulk of the changes include the HTTP Compression and Conditional Get...

Possible Microsoft Live Search Update

There are a few updates to an old thread at WebmasterWorld that show signs of activity at Microsoft Live Search. Two webmasters are reporting seeing changes in rankings at Live Search starting on February 4th. Here are those reports: A...

Microsoft's Live Search Not Ranking New Sites Well Anymore

Guess what? Beyond the value that Microsoft's Live Search Webmaster Portal has for gaining statistical information about your website, it also has an added bonus of the ability to connect with the Live Search team. A WebmasterWorld member says that...

Microsoft's Live Search Still Can't Work Out 301 Permanent Redirects

We have been reporting about Microsoft's issues with handling 301 permanent redirects since September 2006. We came back to the issue this past December but still, Webmasters are complaining at the lack of support for 301 redirects in Microsoft's Live...

Microsoft Live Search Continues Referral Spam Tests With MSLIVSOP?

I noticed an update to the WebmasterWorld thread with the discussion of the weird referrals in the form of spam-like referrals coming from Live Search as cloaking tests. It appears a webmaster is now noticing a bot named MSLIVSOP serving...

Live Search Talks About Cloaking, Recent Bugs, Plays Catch & Much More

I wish Loren at Search Engine Journal also had a category for Best Search Video Blog and Best Search Podcast, because I would have voted for WebProNew's Video Blog for that one. In Mike McDonalds latest video blog interview, he...

.Mac Search Engine Optimization: Google Indexes .Mac Files

A Google Groups thread asks if Google indexes and ranks Apple .Mac pages. Basically, .Mac is just a hosting service for Mac users, who pay for a "Dot Mac" subscription. Googler, JohnMu, said Google does index and rank .Mac files....

Microsoft Live Search Fixes Problem with Google AdWords Ads

Yesterday, we reported findings that MSN was returning Google AdWords links in their natural search results. Well, Microsoft has responded to this issue on the Live Search Webmaster Central Blog, explaining that it was a complete accident and that it...

Live Search Link Command Back Offline

In early November I reported that Microsoft's link command came back to life. But it now seems to be up and down, currently down. The new link command that should work, is the the syntax of +linkdomain:www.seroundtable.com. But as expected,...

Live Search Testing Automatic Local Search Results in Australia?

A WebmasterWorld thread reports Microsoft's Live Search automatically regionalizing the search results of Live.com when searches are conducted in Australia. Woz, WebmasterWorld moderator, said Live is "automatically serving results focused towards," plus they have added "an "Australia Only" tick box."...

Microsoft Confirms Reverse DNS Bot Issue & Promises To Resolve

Yesterday we reported that MSNBot failed some reverse DNS tests. In short, if you did a reverse DNS lookup on the IP addresses of their spiders, it would not resolve to search.live.com. The big issue with this is that Webmasters...

PPC Advertisers Excited for the Microsoft adCenter Add-in Beta for Excel 2007

Microsoft announced a new feature that advertisers can use make their search marketing ad management easier with Microsoft adCenter. The tool is an adCenter add-in for Excel. It will allow you to: Easily extract keywords from any website, just by...

MSNBot Reverse DNS Test Fails Requirements

A year ago, Microsoft promised to enable Webmasters a method of verifying MSNbot. Way too often, rogue spiders mask themselves as official spiders from Google, Yahoo, Live Search or Ask.com. The search engines have enabled methods to conduct reverse DNS...

Live Search's Spam Fake Referrals Were Cloaking Tests, Says Microsoft

I have been corresponding with Microsoft about the weird spam-like referrals Live Search was sending to hundreds, if not thousands, of web site log files throughout the web. On September 6th, a Microsoft representative confirmed that these were actual tests...

Does MSN Follow 301 Redirects?

Scott Hendison (who I met at a variety of search conferences and will see at Pubcon -- hi!) blogged about MSN ignoring 301 redirects: a site he had that ranked #1 in MSN was completely gone. After investigation, he found...

How Do You Complain if Your Site is Banned from MSN Search?

How would you go about submitting a reinclusion request for a site that may have been banned from MSN unfairly? MSNdude says that you can visit http://support.live.com/eform.aspx?productKey=wlsearch&ct=eformts and ask for reinclusion. Forum members at WebmasterWorld are frankly disappointed in MSN's...

Search Marketers Love - Hate Relationship with Microsoft adCenter

A WebmasterWorld thread has a great run down of the frustration many search marketers have to deal with when it comes to advertising with Microsoft adCenter. The user interface within the advertising console clearly frustrates most search marketers. They say...

Microsoft Live Search Spam-Like Referrals Are Still Occurring

In September, we reported that Microsoft's Live Search spam-like referrals are official tests performed by Microsoft and that blocking them could have you delisted from the search results. A bunch of forum members are still reporting this "abnormal" activity and...

Live Search Introduces Domain Rank & Page Rank Green Bars

As many of you saw in the first images of Live Search Webmaster Tools, webmasters can now login to Live Search Webmaster Tools and find their "Domain Rank" and the "Rank" of their top pages. Here is an image of...

Microsoft Launches Live Search Webmaster Tools as Public Beta

About a week ago, I provided exclusive screen shots of the new Microsoft Live Search Webmaster Tools portal. It appears that as of last night, Microsoft has released the http://webmaster.live.com/ to the public, as a beta. So far, there is...

Microsoft Link Command Comes Back to Life After 8 Months

A Sphinn and WebmasterWorld thread report that you can now use the link commands at Live.com again. The syntax appears to be slightly different as Karen Blakeman notes. For a link command, you need to use +link:www.domain.com/filename and for a...

First Screen Shots of Microsoft's Live Search Webmaster Portal

digg_url = 'http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/015268.html'; I just got my invite to Microsoft's new Live Search Webmaster Portal. It is currently in a private beta, so I am not even sure if I can blog this, but I read all the privacy...

Live Search URL Submission Form Fixed After One Month

After almost one month of the Live Search URL Submission form being down, it is now back up at http://search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx. On October 9th, a WebmasterWorld thread reported the form was down, and it remained down until msnDude saw a different...

Live Search Webmaster Portal Beta Coming Soon?

Microsoft announced that they will be launching the Live Search Webmaster Portal, similar to Yahoo Site Explorer and Google Webmaster Central. Microsoft started inviting webmasters into the beta starting around August 31st of this year. I have not heard of...

Microsoft Launches New Search Index & Algorithms

As expected early last week, Microsoft announced the "New Live Search". Todd, Oilman, posted live coverage, as did Vanessa Fox at Search Engine Land of the Searchification event at Microsoft. Here is what Microsoft explained is new: Relevance, relevance, relevance. ...

More Signs of Live Search 2.0

The other day we reported on a Live.com Search Update & Design Update. The other week, in conjunction with our post, the LiveSide blog captured dozens of screen captures of "Live Search 2.0" in action. Ever since then, I see...

Live.com Search Update & Design Update?

TexTex reports at a WebmasterWorld thread about an algorithm and design update at Live.com. No one else saw what Tex saw. Tex described it as: It was a totally different index...with a different look aesthetically..it has since disappeared. Although no...

Microsoft Live Search's Strange Spam-Like Referrals Are Official Tests

Mid-August I reported about Weird Referrals From Microsoft's Live Search. These referrals typically came from Microsoft's IP blocks but also contained weird referral strings that included adult keywords, pharmaceutical keywords, and other spam like keyword phrases. Last night, the official...

Labor Day Noticed by Dogpile & Search Engine Roundtable

Seems like Google, Yahoo, Ask.com and Microsoft Live Search all are not sporting anything exciting or new for Labor Day. They have not done anything special in the past either, so it is not too surprising. Dogpile is sporting the...

Microsoft Begins Accepting Webmasters into Beta Live Search Portal

A couple weeks ago Microsoft Promised Webmasters a Live Search Portal. Part of that included the ability to be part of the beta, to test out new features. Some Webmasters signed up and have already been invited into the beta....

Microsoft Promises Webmasters a Live Search Portal

Many are excited that Microsoft has announced that they will be building out a webmaster portal. The portal will be similar to that of Yahoo's Site Explorer of Google's Webmaster Central. As Danny Sullivan explains, the portal will help consolidate...

Weird Referrals From Microsoft's Live Search?

A WebmasterWorld thread reports several webmasters finding weird referrers from Microsoft's Live Search. I am getting thousands of hits where the items in my log show the referrer as follows; http://search.live.com/result.aspx?q=KEYWORD&mrt=en-us&FORM=LVSP When I load the referred page then I am...

Microsoft Now Using Autodiscovery Sitemaps for Crawl Assistance

The official Microsoft Live Search representative at WebmasterWorld said that Microsoft will finally be supporting Sitemaps (for real this time) now. Microsoft will currently support autodiscovery of your sitemap file if it is included within your robots.txt file. I have...

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