I am a big fan of the Bing Cashback program but on the merchant side, I was never to clear on how that worked. I did some research and merchants can sign up here to be included in the Cashback...
I am a big fan of the Bing Cashback program but on the merchant side, I was never to clear on how that worked. I did some research and merchants can sign up here to be included in the Cashback...
We have more MSNBot troubles to unfortunately bring to you. Microsoft Bing's spider, MSNBot, is apparently not listening to directives they should be listening to. In this case, it is the crawl delay command, where a couple users are claiming...
There is a small thread at WebmasterWorld with two advertisers complaining that their US based ads are not running as often as their UK based Microsoft adCenter campaigns. In short, the US campaigns they were running, in comparison to the...
A new Microsoft adCenter Desktop Beta application is reportedly coming this November 6th. Microsoft adCenter Desktop Beta allows adCenter advertisers (ads on Bing) to manage their ads via a desktop application, as opposed to the web console. A WebmasterWorld thread...
Most search spiders have been known to get a bit crawl happy from time to time. But the most complaints over time come from MSNBot which tends to often get out of hand and send their spiders on individuals sites...
15 days ago, Bing launched visual search, if you haven't heard about it, click the link and watch the video demo. Today, people are noticing that Bing has added a link to visual search directly from the Bing home page....
Yesterday I wrote about a MediaPost report claiming Microsoft Bing will be the next search engine to try favicons and images in search ads. Google tested favicons in AdWords and so did Yahoo search ads. Google Japan even went large...
If you go to the Bing Webmaster Tools and login, then try to "add a site" to the list of sites you have rights to manage, you will get a page cannot be displayed type of page. Here is a...
I guess those Bing commercials are indeed working. CNet reports on a Neilson ratings survey that claims Microsoft's Bing search engine has captured 10% share. Here is the break down: Table 1: Top 10 Search Providers for August 2009,...
With all the on going issues with MSNBot not behaving, I am not too surprised to see more complaints about the little spider. New confirmed reports from Bing Forums shows that MSNBot is hiding itself under the UserAgent of Mozilla/4.0....
BT.com, a major UK portal, was powered by Yahoo Search, but is now being powered by Google Search. Why is this a big deal? Well, the portal is a partnership of some sort between Yahoo and BT, i.e. it is...
All that chatter of Bing 2.0 I guess was about Microsoft launching a new search feature to let you narrow your search results down through filters and images - i.e. visually. Here is a video demo of how it works:...
Today is the anniversary of the horrible attacks of the U.S., forever known as September 11th, or 9/11. People will be asking, why doesn't Google have a special logo up (a Doodle) to remember the day. The answer is because...
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...
Over the past few weeks, I have been noticing threads pop up in the Bing forums with complaints from webmasters that Bing's bot, aka MSNBot is not honoring their robots.txt directives. It was not just one thread, but at least...
There are some complaints in the Bing Forums that the Bing mouse over box, which we discussed yesterday, has a weird error. When you mouse over certain listings, Bing may show the following type of error in the box: WARNING...
A Bing Forum thread asks if there is a way to update the quick preview box (more info box) found on some of the search results in the Bing search page. The quick preview box is the box on the...
One of the most talked about features of Bing, Microsoft search engine, is not the search features at all but rather the pictures they show on their home page. It truly keeps people coming back every day. But sometimes people...
Some users have noticed a bug with Bing Mobile at m.bing.com, where Microsoft is loading the wrong language for that user. Microsoft confirmed the bug as a "language display bug" in the Bing Forums. An apparent Microsoft Bing representative listed...
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...
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...
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...
I am a big fan of Microsoft's Cashback program, as a consumer. As a searcher, I find it a bit hard to use - although it is getting better. But I have been watching the Bing forums and it just...
Yesterday, I had a quick chat with a Microsoft Bing webmaster representative, where I asked him several questions that have been recently buzzing around the webmaster community. One of those questions was, is MSNbot clicking on Bing adCenter ads? The...
I spotted a thread at the Bing Forums where an official Microsoft representative, "cashbackGreg," offered some insight into new features that may be coming to the Bing Cashback program. Bing's Cashback program gives you a way to get cash back...
The Microsoft & Yahoo deal has been perceived as a very poor deal for Yahoo and has made Yahoo's new CEO, Carol Bartz, look extremely bad on Wall Street and in our community here. There is no doubt that Yahoo...
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....
Less then two weeks after a July Bing update, Bing is reportedly updating again. A WebmasterWorld thread has several webmasters noticing major shifts in the search results at Microsoft's Bing. Here is some of the feedback from the thread: Definitely...
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...
A WebmasterWorld thread has a senior webmaster claiming that in some cases, Microsoft Bing is ignoring the <meta name="robots" content="noarchive"> tag. The noarchive tag basically tells the search engine not to display a "cache" result in the search listings. This...
Shawn Hogan, DigitalPoint's founder, has posted a thread at DigitalPoint Forums clearly showing his frustration with MSNBot, Microsoft Bing's search crawler. He is upset that the bot is crawling too much, too fast - causing an unnecessary spike in load...
Earlier, we noted how Bing, Microsoft's search engine, relied heavily on the meta language tag. Google's Matt Cutts even commented why using that method can lead to issues (don't you love it when the search engines nitpick at each other)....
There is a thread I have been watching at the Bing Community where one member said that he had log files that shows MSNBot (Microsoft Bing's crawler) is clicking on Microsoft adCenter search ads, possibly charging him for those clicks....
Yahoo and Microsoft have finally announced their search deal, after years of negotiation. In short, if the deal is approved by regulators, Yahoo Search will be powered by Microsoft Bing and Yahoo Search Marketing (aka Panama) will be powered by...
I am so tired about writing about the Microsoft and Yahoo talks rumors, so I am sure you are tired reading about it. But over the course of the past week or two, the rumors that a deal is going...
The Technology Review reports the Microsoft research team designed a game to help make Bing a better search engine. The game is named Page Hunt and it presents players with web pages and asks them to guess the queries that...
Not to be outdone by Google, Bing seems to also be updating. I spotted at least three different threads, in three different forums, discussing how these webmasters either had no rankings in Bing prior to the other day and now...
A Bing Community thread has one webmaster who had his meta language tag set to the UK and he paid for it. Supposedly, Microsoft's Bing plays close attention to that meta tag and in the case of Joomla, the default...
A Bing thread has two complaints from webmasters on Microsoft's newish crawler, MSNBot 2. The bot, in some cases, might be adding a pound sign (#) to the end of the URLs. Now, this might not be the fault of...
Last night, Google (GOOG) announced earnings and they "met" expectations, because the revenues were up 3%. There is a lot of buzz about this on Techmeme, but to read more about the earnings and the conference call about the earnings,...
There is a large thread at the Bing Community on the topic of how Bing treats domain names. There are some people that feel that Bing's algorithm weighs too heavily on words in a domain name. Cleo started the thread,...
Let me start off by saying this is not brand new, but Microsoft is now making sure people know about the Bing Toolbox. The Bing Toolbox is basically a landing page that has links to the most important webmaster tools...
You know how to get listed in Google News but what about Bing News? A Bing Community thread has discussion around that topic. Brett Yount from the Bing Webmaster Center said the way to be included in Bing News is...
There are several reports around the web about a new search bot by Microsoft that is causing major issues for web servers. The bot is named adidxbot and the useragent looks like this: adidxbot/1.1 (+http://search.msn.com/msnbot.htm). This bot has been on...
About a week ago, we showed our readers many of the bing commercials and asked you guys if you liked them. To my surprise, about 60% of you said you do like them, while only about 25% of you said...
A WebmasterWorld thread reports a search advertiser receiving an email from Microsoft's adCenter team about his ads not showing up in Bing. The email basically said that his site was reviewed by the QBR (Quality Based Ranking) team and they...
Even though I kind of mocked Bing's spam tests as being the cause for many people seeing the search share of Microsoft's Bing as seizing market share, it is not the case in most situations. In most situations, the search...
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...
Recently, there has been a lot of discussion around Microsoft's commercials for Bing. I saw a few on TV several days ago, and they are pretty unique. But some people love them and some people hate them. Bing finally set...
The New York TImes reports Microsoft has filed suit against Eric Lam, Gordon Lam and Melanie Suen, of Vancouver, British Columbia. The suit comes after a year of investigative work by Microsoft in tracking down reports of click fraud. According...
Bing added instant translation as a smart answer or instant answer to their search. For example, if you search for how do you say search in spanish you get the answer "búsqueda." Google also has some form of translation OneBox...
When Bing launched a bit over a week ago, we asked our readers via an anonymous poll if they like the new Microsoft search engine. To my surprise, 70% of the responses said they like the new search engine. Keep...
So, Microsoft made some serious press with Bing, their new search engine, going live. The search interface is very different from Live.com and some of the vertical search portals, like video, maps, images have new features, but a lot of...
A WebmasterWorld thread reports that Microsoft's new search engine, Bing, which launched the other day, does not seem to support the NOODP tag. The NOODP tag tells the search engine not to use the Open Directory Project's title or description...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
I spotted a member in a DigitalPoint Forums thread with a level of certainty that Microsoft will be announcing at adTech San Francisco today that they are opening up ContentAds (also may be known as PubCenter) as a public beta....
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...
As a way to promote Microsoft's search technology, in November 2006, Microsoft launched Ms. Dewey, a Flash based search interface which answered your queries in a witty and sarcastic manner. Sadly, as Kim reports, msdewey.com no longer is live, in...
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...
Microsoft has been beta testing adCenter Analytics since 2007, but yesterday, they announced they will be closing the tool down. They really didn't say why. All they said was, "The Microsoft adCenter Analytics team announced today the end of the...
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....
Yesterday, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft announced together a new way to handle internal duplicate content issues with a new "canonical" header tag. Vanessa Fox does an excellent job explaining what it is all about in her piece at Search Engine...
It has now been a year since adCenterEU, the official Microsoft adCenter representative at WebmasterWorld, has posted at the forum. His last post can be found at a thread named Microsoft To Serve Ads On WSJ Digital Network where he...
In the past two days, Google and Microsoft have announced earnings. Google's announcement is over here and Microsoft's announcement is over here. The market had time to react to Microsoft's announcement of cutting 5,000 jobs and a weak outlook on...
Discovery in a Search Engine Watch Forums thread reports that Microsoft adCenter now gives advertisers the basic feature of allowing advertisers to plug in custom dates into the reporting engine. To see the custom date range option, go to the...
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...
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...
Danny Sullivan writes about the problems about Microsoft search at Search Engine Land, and he explains what they need to do in order to get it together. Some reasons are that Microsoft's key executives don't care about search. For example,...
According to MacWorld, a small company has filed suit against Google, Apple, and Microsoft over a patent for document previews, claiming it owned the patent before the three companies utilized the technology. The patent was applied for in 2001. The...
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...
In a report by ZDNet, Microsoft and Dell have arrived at an agreement that new Dell computers will be shipped with the Live search bar preinstalled -- instead of Google's. This is really big news for Microsoft (and as one...
Since the end of July, there's been a vacancy at Microsoft as Kevin Johnson moved on from the company. The New York Times reports that Johnson's vacancy is finally filled: Qi Lu, a former Yahoo executive, has taken the position....
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...
Many SEOs use the site command to see how healthy their site is in a particular search engine. So you plug in site:www.mydomain.com in a search engine and the search engine will return the number of pages they have indexed...
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....
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...
On the Microsoft Office Live Small Business Blog (and even in a second post), Senior Product Manager Skip Chilcott writes that link exchanges are a "popular way to generate more links." Blogger Saad Kamal has a problem with this. Citing...
Jerry Yang, from what I hear about him, is a kind, gentle, caring and giving person. To see the news that he is stepping down form the CEO role, for the betterment of the company, is sad but yet necessary....
Brett Tabke with Satya Nadella, Senior Vice President, Search, MSN Portal & Advertising Platform Group, Microsoft. Brett welcomes everyone and does some quick house keeping. Satya Nadella is now up, it seems like he will be speaking, no back and...
There are two very long threads in the search forums talking about how Google's AdSense ads are showing political ads on their sites. A WebmasterWorld thread and a Google Help Forum thread has discussion on why these ads are showing...
These are the days of cut backs. We've seen it at Yahoo and now we are hearing about it at Microsoft's adCenter team. adCenterRep posted a thread at DigitalPoint Forums announcing the support details for the Microsoft adCenter product/service. The...
Bloomberg reports that Yahoo has gained search share in September 2008 while Microsoft has lost some of its share. Yahoo had about 20.2 percent of queries in September, up from 19.6 percent in August, Reston, Virginia-based ComScore said today in...
Two days ago, we reported that adCenter has a new logo. It looks like Microsoft is not stopping there in terms of giving adCenter new enhancements. These include: Campaign Management: you can now pause/resume ads/keywords. There's more geo-targeting options, and...
If you visit adCenter's home page you will notice that Microsoft now has given adCenter a logo. The logo is a oval like blue symbol, next to a small "Microsoft Advertising," with a larger "adCenter" imprint below. Here is a...
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,...
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...
The adCenter blog announced that they will be releasing an update prior to the holiday season. The update will include the following features to their search ad product, adCenter: Expanded your billing and payment optionsSimplified your campaign management experienceImproved the...
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...
First, we had Microsoft Cash Back where Microsoft paid you to search the web with live.com. Now, we have Search Perks where Microsoft pays you to search the web with live.com ... well, almost. The difference between Search Perks and...
Numerous WebmasterWorld members are reporting that they have been invited to the Microsoft adCenter Desktop Beta. If you need any help with the Microsoft adCenter Desktop beta, adCenterRep has announced that there is a community forum for assistance. If you...
We have been tracking a Search Engine Watch Forums thread on feature requests for Microsoft adCenter Desktop Beta. That thread has just been updated by adCenterRep with a promise of new features. The new features coming soon to adCenter Desktop...
In a PC World article, Google has increased its market share, up to 63% from 61.9%. Yahoo and Microsoft both experienced drops from July. The article states that "[t]he slipping market share of Yahoo and Microsoft doesn't speak well for...
We've briefly seen search tool Powerset in action at SES just a month ago. They were acquired by Microsoft around that time and are already being integrated into search results. The Powerset blog explains some of the feature offerings: Freebase...
Earlier this month, Bill Slawski wrote about how search engines use images to rank web pages. He explains that search engines often look at text, alt tags, and similar contextual elements to rank images. He also refers to a Microsoft...
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...
Yesterday we talked about how Yahoo is lacking a desktop editor for their search marketing platform. Today, there is a nice thread at Search Engine Watch Forums on the topic of improving the adCenter Editor Beta application. Search Engine Watch...
A week ago, I asked what would you do if your site gets penalized. The options I gave were (A) Clean Up The Site & Request Reinclusion, (B) Quit the SEO Game and Play Golf or (C) Burn the Site...
Like last year, Google, Yahoo and Ask.com do not have special logos up for Labor Day. But Dogpile and even Live.com have logos or themes live for the day. Here is DogPile's logo: Live.com has a mention of Labor Day...
On the Microsoft adCenter blog, we're informed that there is a brand new "keyword research tool to help you more efficiently find keywords and plan campaigns in adCenter." The tool will provide suggested keywords, the ability to add keywords to...
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...
Does Google have a tool for suggesting misspellings for your AdWords campaign? Nope! Instead, a Google rep, AdWordsPro Sarah, recommends someone else. Can you guess who? Well, in case you didn't read the subject of this blog post, it's Microsoft!...
CNet reports that Microsoft has announced BrowseRank, which they feel may help boost the search's popularity. CNet explains the difference between BrowseRank (BR?) and PageRank: Essentially, the researchers tested out a system that replaces PageRanks' link graph--a mathematical model of...
According to The New York Times, Microsoft will soon be advertising within Facebook. Perhaps this is because Microsoft currently has an ad deal with Digg and Digg might be acquired by Google soon, possibly nullifying the contract (though I don't...
Big technology blogger Kara Swisher shares an internal memo of a Microsoft reorganization. Its Platforms and Service division will be split into 2 groups: Windows/Windows Live and Online Services, of which members will report directly to Steve Ballmer. Microsoft's press...
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....
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...
Microsoft has re-announced its ContentAds program last Friday. The program is currently in private beta, as we have reported at the end of 2006, but we have covered it since the beginning of 2006 Microsoft's post seems like more of...
Techmeme has the big buzz about Google's second quarter earnings. Google claimed this was a strong quarter with 35% in profits ($3.92 per share), but their earnings still didn't meet analysts' expectations. Meanwhile, Microsoft's earnings also rose. The company's fiscal...
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...
After several months of indecision regarding the Microsoft-Yahoo merger, Techmeme shares multiple reports that Yahoo and Microsoft are no longer going to consider any sort of partnership (including one from the Yahoo press room.. The reasoning behind this is likely...
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...
Google has faced a lot of criticism in the press lately as a result of some decisions and the slow decline of their product offerings. In one New York Times article, Google is criticized for raising the price of day...
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...
Recent news in Yahoo has a number of innovators -- primarily young, talented, and influential Yahoo employees (in addition to some bigger execs) -- leaving the company. Among those have been Joshua Schachter of delicious, the Flickr founders, and big...
I have been tracking a very sensitive thread at High Rankings Forum for the past several days. The original thread creator is fairly cryptic in his details, due to privacy reasons, but I think I have a grasp of what...
comScore released its April 2008 rankings last week, and it appears that Google has increased its search share to 61.6% up from 59.8% the previous month. Even though this is an overall view of search traffic, forum members wonder if...
Yesterday's news was all about Microsoft's new deal with Yahoo, which won't require an acquisition, which was dropped earlier this month, according to CNN, CNET, and other sources. Instead, the goal will be to keep the value of Yahoo high...
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...
On WebmasterWorld, a number of webmasters have seen an abnormal number of clicks from Microsoft's IPs since August 1st. Interestingly enough, the clicks are going to PPC links and not organic links, so it's not simply a spider. A number...
Yesterday, Search Engine Land announced that Microsoft has launched Windows Live Translator. Essentially, this is Babelfish for Microsoft. The interface looks pretty impressive, and I'm sure that if I knew any other language besides a little bit of Hebrew, it...
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...
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....
adCenterEU has updated us on the adCenter bulk import draft problem, saying at a WebmasterWorld thread that the problem will be resolved in a "month or so." Microsoft will be adding new functionality to make it easier and quicker to...
Last week, Microsoft launched Tafiti, a search engine that is powered by its new Silverlight technology. I played around with the features and have showed some screenshots of the new search engine in action. Once Silverlight is installed, you see...
In the Copyright & Trademarks: What SEMs Should Know session from SES San Jose last week, adCenter announced they have a new policy on how they will be handling trademark complaints. Instead of them being the go between, between affiliates...
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...
I reported this the other day at Search Engine Land, Microsoft Content Ads To Open To All US Advertisers August 29. In short, Microsoft is opting in all US advertisers into their content network (i.e. ContentAds). The only way for...
adCenterEU confirmed in a WebmasterWorld thread that in the next "couple weeks" they should have an announcement regarding fixing the issue with the draft setting after conducting a bulk import in adCenter. The problem, as summarized in the thread: Loving...
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...
A WebmasterWorld thread points to Microsoft's most recent statements of their focus on search: Microsoft Corp. said on Monday its Web search business remains on a "positive trajectory" with plans to roll out several updates over the next 12 months....
Yesterday, the Microsoft acquisition of aQuantive was finalized, with Microsoft looking to close the search engine traffic gap between itself and with Google/Yahoo. With the acquisition comes the formation of the Advertiser and Publisher Solutions Group which will serve advertisers...
If you notice dashes in the place of the numbers in your adCenter statistics reports, then no need to worry. In a WebmasterWorld thread, adCenterEU explained that the dashes represent that there was a timeout failure between the reporting and...
Yesterday, Digg made an announcement that it dropped Google as its advertising partner and has chosen to sign a three-year exclusive advertising deal with Microsoft. Search Engine Land quotes Microsoft's Steve Berkowitz about the move: Our collaboration with Digg is...
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...
In response to Google's announcement to anonymize user data after 18-24 months and possibly the response by Ask.com to launch AskEraser and also to anonymize user data after 18 months, Microsoft has taken a similar stance, according to a Reuters...
Being #3 usually sucks. People like #1 and some have learned to settle for #2. But when you're the third-most-preferred search engine, why continue competing? That's the question of the day at the Cre8asite Forums. I see figures like 50-65%...
Google is gaining momentum in the search sphere, but Microsoft seems to be picking up the pace. According to a Chicago Tribune article, financial analysts expect that over the next decade, Google will take a whopping 90% of the market...
A DigitalPoint Forums thread has a member saying he has been beta testing the Microsoft alternative to Google's AdSense program, named ContentAds. He gave the new contextual ad program, from a publisher's perspective, a great review. To be honest is...
In May, we reported that Bill Gates is interested in focusing and bettering their search engine. A WebmasterWorld thread highlights an article in BusinessWeek that emphasizes Microsoft's resolve to focus its energy on acquiring companies that specialize in vertical search....
Last week, I reported that Microsoft adCenter was adding negative keywords on the campaign level. This maintenance would have occurred on Saturday, June 23. However, in WebmasterWorld, Search Engine Watch Forums, and DigitalPoint Forums adCenter411 updates the threads to inform...
There appears to be some early reports of a Live.com or MSN Search update taking place now. A WebmasterWorld thread has a few signs and signals from the SEO community that such an update is currently underway. It is currently...
I typically like to wait for Danny Sullivan to do his large chart, plotting all the various metrics companies against each other. But Nielsen//NetRatings released (PDF) a report with new share figures. Here they are: In the number one slot,...
About a month ago we reported that Microsoft adCenter Conversion Tracking Turned Off Automatically. The bug continued to linger and linger. Finally, last night, adCenter411, Microsoft's official adCenter representative, has confirmed they found the issue of the bug and fixed...
According to Brent in the Search Engine Roundtable Forums, Microsoft adCenter is now providing more information into why they are rejecting keywords. Some of the reasons are: Too much ad text (keyword parameter use exceeds character limits) Landing page content...
Seattle 2007" />Satya Nadella is a 15 year Microsoft veteran, and has recently become the VP of Micorsoft’s Search & Advertising Platform Group. There is a new secret search stealth project going on in San Jose? At the end...
A ton of mapping news came out yesterday. Search Engine Land has a great overview of ma lot of the ones that apply to the search engines. - Google Launches "Street View" Photography - Microsoft Virtual Earth Expands 3-D Coverage...
A New York Times article says that Google will be investigated for its $3.1 billion dollar acquisition of DoubleClick to see if the company has violated any antitrust laws. Last month, Google acquired DoubleClick for $3.1 billion and was challenged...
A DigitalPoint Forums thread reports a few webmasters received phone calls from Microsoft adCenter representatives. Both webmasters seemed to have set up accounts in the past, but never fully activated those accounts. One said, I signed up several months back...
I reported this at SES NY but I have now found a thread confirming this at WebmasterWorld. adCenterEU confirmed there will be some type of accreditation program for adCenter managers. Thanks for your interest in the adCenter accreditation scheme. We...
If you are a Microsoft adCenter advertiser, I recommend you login to your account and check to make sure that the conversion tracking part is set to the way you like it. Two advertisers noticed over the weekend that the...
Bill Gates is determined to keep the Microsoft legacy alive as long as he's working for him. A WebmasterWorld thread references an article by Mr. Gates where he has vowed to keep the online services -- including search -- alive:...
The official Microsoft adCenter representative has confirmed that they are using Intellitxt ads "to drive trial and interest in Live Search itself." Intellitxt is a contextual product that shows ads within the text you are reading for the those keywords...
The big news this morning is that Microsoft is looking to acquire Yahoo for $50 billion. Over at Search Engine Land, Danny also covers the possible merger. Ironically, DigitalPoint members are hoping that this ends the the Google search monopoly:...
I hate to say I told you so, but in this case, I told you so. Tamar reported on Monday, Microsoft adCenter Using Matching Criteria Other than Keyword Searches to Display Ads. In that, she explained how the terms and...
A Cre8asite Forums thread tells the perfect story of someone who wants a page they own to be removed from the search engines. One of my clients is an attorney and all of his partners have their own biography page...
I reported earlier this week that adCenter advertisers noticed a drop in traffic, which we later found out was due to them adding a quality factor to the ads displayed in live.com. Microsoft claimed that "this improvement will ensure that...
Update: The adCenter blog posted that they made an update to the algorithm that ranks the ads. They now take into account relevancy and quality factors such as "content of the ad and landing page, keywords that an advertiser selects...
In one of Google's costliest acquisitions, on Friday, the Google blog announced (as did the Google AdSense Blog and the Google AdWords blog) that they were acquiring the DoubleClick online advertising firm for $3.1 billion. A WebmasterWorld thread discusses the...
Last week, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft & Ask.com To All Support Sitemaps Autodiscovery. So how do you ping these services to notify the search engines of an update to your Sitemaps, if you do not want to wait for them to...
The other day I reported that Microsoft Live Search Link Command Operator Offline. You can not longer use the link:, linkdomain: and inurl: operators at Microsoft's Live Search. It is official, Microsoft has informed us that they removed it because...
Tamar reported yesterday here that MSN Prepopulates their UK Search Box with "The Apprentice BBC". But it does not appear to just be prepopulated with "The Apprentice BBC". Last night they began showing "Euro 2008 results" in the search box,...
In the old days of the Pay Per Click management days, you used to hear the phrase - "set it and forget it." Meaning, you set up your pay per click campaign in Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and others....
Since yesterday morning Microsoft's Live.com has been having issues with their link command. Microsoft does have a comprehensive link command feature but right now, it appears to still be offline. A search on link:www.seroundtable.com would normally return results but now...
On a recurring theme of Internet spam, a study discussed in WebmasterWorld indicates that three out of four blogs -- or 75% -- are spam. According to the study (PDF link): ...14 of the top-15 doorway domains have a spam...
On November 15, 2006 Google, Microsoft & Yahoo! Back SiteMaps Protocol and Microsoft posted about it back then that they are supporting it. We are 100% behind this protocol - this kind of collaboration will help improve the search experience...
A thread on WebmasterWorld has discussion on the news from last week that IBM/Lenovo has agreed to pre-install the Microsoft Live toolbar on new Lenovo desktops and notebooks. The details of this partnership entitle Microsoft's Live.com page to be the...
A WebmasterWorld thread reports a possible Microsoft Search, Live.com Search, update. Is anyone else seeing this? It seems like a BIG update, and lots of old problems fixed. Our website is finally showing #1 (after being pushed down by spam...
A WebmasterWorld thread links to a December 2006 paper at Yahoo! Research named A Reference Collection for Web Spam. The paper can be downloaded as a PDF file, it is not brand new, but relatively new. Here is the abstract:...
The adCenter blog announced last week that they will be expanding the content network, to allow more Microsoft adCenter advertisers to bid in the content network. The thing is, if you get a notification of your account being upgraded into...
Microsoft is just not doing all that well, and honestly, I am surprised by how poorly they are doing. I learned this morning that Chris Payne, corporate vice president of Windows Live search, is leaving Microsoft to start up his...
The big news over the weekend was that Microsoft to blast Google for its copyright policy via Reuters. Let me give you some quotes to some things up quickly. In prepared remarks to be delivered to the Association of American...
A WebmasterWorld thread asks if reinclusion requests at Microsoft's Live.com Search works. Like with Google reinclusion requests, some go heard and some go unheard. For example, one WebmasterWorld member has yet to hear back from Microsoft and his site is...
This is funny, remember the huge adCenter overcharge bug a couple weeks ago? Yea, they did refund adCenter advertisers very soon after. I am now spotting reports at the WebmasterWorld thread that they refunded advertisers too much! Well, we were...
There are two separate reports from two different threads that Microsoft adCenter's conversion tracking is inflating their figures. First, what is adCenter conversion tracking? The adCenter Conversion Tracking help says: Converson tracking is a free feature provided by Microsoft adCenter...
The huge adCenter overcharging bug this past Friday was patched towards the end of the day Friday. Microsoft promised to refund all the overcharging that occurred throughout the day in their blog post. After reviewing the threads at DigitalPoint Forums...
digg_url = 'http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/012501.html'; Fixed: The adCenter representative has notified us via the two forums and the adCenter blog that the overcharging has been fixed and that they are now working up a plan to reimburse advertisers. Update: This is...
If you are an advertisers on Microsoft's Live.com adCenter, and you noticed your reports not being updated, you are not alone. A WebmasterWorld thread has details of adCenter reports not updating since 7:00 am EST on February 11th. adCenter411, the...
A WebmasterWorld thread has a theory that smaller pages tend to rank better in Microsoft's Live Search (MSN Search), than larger pages. Senior member, crobb305 explains: Has anyone else noticed that very small pages rank highest in MSN? This could...
The Live Search Blog announced that they have renamed and taken out of beta, their search API the other day. The new name is Windows Live Search API, lovely. They also gave it a bit of an upgrade, adding: More...
Microsoft officially launched their search product on November 11, 2004, almost two years and three months ago. A WebmasterWorld thread asks, "so after two years has MSN finally got it right?" So far, Webmasters are saying no. Here are some...
There honestly has not been much discussion in the various forums about the recently released adCenter beta by Microsoft. There is a thread at Search Engine Watch Forums that calls the new beta more confusing and has slightly more bugs....
A WebmasterWorld thread has continued discussion over the past week or so, of the Microsoft Live.com page submission tool being broken. Microsoft has numerous page submission pages depending on the geolocation of your site. There are various reports of the...
Yesterday there was some confusion on if Microsoft adCenter Advertisers Being Forced into Content Network? The official adCenter representative at WebmasterWorld, adCenter411, has replied with more details, to clear things up. A select number of adCenter customers are being migrated...