Over the weekend, Microsoft finally backed off Yahoo and has decided to pull their offer to buy Yahoo and also decided they would not pursue a hostile takeover of the company. That sums it up basically. Now, if you want...
Over the weekend, Microsoft finally backed off Yahoo and has decided to pull their offer to buy Yahoo and also decided they would not pursue a hostile takeover of the company. That sums it up basically. Now, if you want...
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...
The Seattle Times reports that Microsoft has launched a brand new Live Search News portal that combines video, news, and video. It's not that different than Google News, WebmasterWorld member Robert Charlton says. He notes that Google feels more like...
CNet News reports that Google is the best brand -- once again -- for the third year in a row, according to a market research firm. Google's brand, according to the data (which is calculated based on interviews and financial...
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...
The saga continues with a very unusual night for Yahoo yesterday. Let me catch everyone up with what happened yesterday. Follow the timeline, all reports are linked via Search Engine Land (times are estimates and EST): 15:00 (EST) - Confirmed:...
Microsoft's CEO, Ballmer, sent Yahoo's board members a public letter saying: If we have not concluded an agreement within the next three weeks, we will be compelled to take our case directly to your shareholders, including the initiation of a...
Of all days, on April 1st, Microsoft finally acquired Yahoo. All the silence we have been hearing was confidential discussions between Yahoo's executive team and Microsoft's executive. It really didn't even take that long, but most of us expected that...
It seems like you can now request to join the pilot Microsoft ContentAds program as a publisher. Currently, there was really no public method to request to show Microsoft ContentAds, via the adCenter content network, on your site. But now,...
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...
Like most PPC campaign systems, there is a default cap at how many keywords, ad groups and so on you can have per account. Microsoft adCenter has their limits to: Keywords: 10,000 per adGroupAds: 20 per adGroupKeyword Account Limit: 100,000...
A WebmasterWorld thread says Microsoft is inviting some adCenter advertisers to beta test a new ad editor. The acronym for this product is ACE, standing for adCenter Editor (Beta). According to the member in the thread, it appears to be...
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...
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...
A WebmasterWorld thread reports that several Microsoft adCenter advertisers are recently unhappy with the quality of traffic they are seeing from adCenter. The conversion rates on adCenter, as reported by a few advertisers, has been as low as ever. WebmasterWorld...
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...
Good news adCenter advertisers, Microsoft has finally fixed the broken dynamic keyword feature in adCenter. We first reported the news back on February 21st, but even then it was an issue that was fairly old. But it should now be...
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 adCenter has allowed dynamic keyword insertion pretty much since they officially launched the program. But for a while now, the keyword insertion feature has not been working properly. A WebmasterWorld thread asks if the feature has been fixed yet....
Whether or not Yahoo accepts Microsoft's bid, Microsoft seems heavily invested in search and will continue to look to compete with Google, according to Reuters. In an interview, Bill Gates is quoted as saying that Yahoo would help make the...
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...
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...
On January 7th, we asked you to vote on the most improved PPC program of 2007. Your votes are now all in and I wanted to share the 76 responses. Overall, most of you felt Yahoo Search Marketing was the...
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...
Tamar reported a couple weeks ago that Microsoft put a bid in for Yahoo. We learned over the weekend that Yahoo would reject the offer and they would possibly partner with AOL to prevent a hostile take over by Microsoft....
Yesterday, Microsoft showed off new forms of advertising, including demographic targeting and ads in video clips, according to Forbes. Some of the proposed ad changes include targeting advertisements around key ideas rather than hundreds or thousands of keywords. The ads...
If the Microsoft bid for Yahoo goes through, Reuters says that they might have to borrow money to make it happen. "It's likely we're actually going to borrow for the first time," said [Microsoft CFO Chris] Liddell in an annual...
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...
After Google learned of the bid for Microsoft to buy Yahoo, the Google blog responded harshly to the possibilities of an acquisition. David Drummond, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer of Google, writes: So Microsoft's hostile bid...
In an unexpected move this morning, Microsoft has made a $44.6 billion move to acquire Yahoo. Needless to say, it has come as a shock to everyone. What's in store? We're not sure, but we hope it's good. I thought...
WebmasterWorld moderator, Receptional, says in a WebmasterWorld thread that Microsoft has invited him to participate in the adExcellence accreditation program in the UK. It seems like it was just launched, however we did expect an adExcellence UK launch in 2007...
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...
MarketWatch and Search Engine Land have publicized the announcement made yesterday that Microsoft has made a $1.23 billion bid to purchase Norwegian company Fast Search. Does this mean that a more relevant Live search is on the horizon? It's quite...
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...
A member posted a thread at WebmasterWorld in the Microsoft adCenter forum asking how he can advertise in the German market with adCenter. Guess what? You can't, not just yet. However, adCenterEU, the official Microsoft representative in the European market,...
Bill Slawski discovered a patent application by Microsoft that seeks to "restrict the results for queries to be from blog pages." Does that mean that blogging has had its day? Well, if the key word is restrict and Microsoft is...
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,...
Yesterday, both Google AdWords and Microsoft adCenter had reported issues with logging into their respective advertising consoles. The first Google AdWords issues were reported at WebmasterWorld last night at 7:40pm (EST). Similar issues were reported with the AdSense console at...
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."...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
A Cre8asite Forums member is baffled by an article he read where Bill Gates is working on developing software that can read your mind. Is this a good direction for both Microsoft (as a competitive edge over Google) and for...
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...
Yesterday, Google announced the Open Handset Alliance: open source mobile software. WebmasterWorld reaction is mixed. Some feel that Microsoft is threatened, whereas others think that the average consumer will probably not opt in for Google's mobile operating system because they...
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...
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 and Facebook are new best friends. According to a Wall Street Journal article, Microsoft has invested a considerable sum of money -- nearly $250 million -- to provide advertising on the coveted social platform. Microsoft Corp. agreed to invest...
First came Google Voice Search, and now Microsoft has followed suit. The LA Times reports that Microsoft has rolled out Live Search Mobile: Live Search Mobile, which users have to download to their handsets, displays listings and driving directions on...
There are unconfirmed reports from DigitalPoint Forums that Microsoft is going to upgrade adCenter soon to support daily budgeting. Currently, I believe, adCenter only has a way to set a budget at the month level. You can supposedly set a...
A few weeks ago, we reported that the "promotion algorithm" for Google AdWords is changing. Instead of using the actual CPC, Google will use the maximum CPC. Similarly, as Barry reported on Search Engine Land, Microsoft is following suit. AussieWebmaster...
Yesterday, Microsoft announced that it had acquired shopping site Jellyfish, according to WebmasterWorld members. Is the the beginning of a new Microsoft search engine? After all, Microsoft unveiled some new features on Live.com last week. Moderator pageoneresults wonders if that's...
In a move that appears to rival the existence of Google Docs, Microsoft has announced that it is bringing MS Office to the web. The caveat: you can only view documents, not edit them. A few people are baffled by...
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. ...
Numerous reports indicate that Microsoft is looking to purchase a stake in Facebook and values the social networking site at roughly $10 billion. That's 5 times as much as Zuckerberg was originally rumored to have wanted to sell Facebook for...
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...
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...
It's been 8 months since I initially reported on Microsoft Gatineau, and now the forums have gotten hold of the news. DigitalPoint Forums members are happy to see that other alternatives are available, and Search Engine Roundtable Forums members are...