MSNBot Crawl Delay Doesn't Delay

Nov 11, 2009 - 8:49 am 0 by
Filed Under Bing Search

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 Microsoft Bing's MSNBot is not honoring. There is a thread on the topic at Bing Forums and no Microsoft representative has come in to clarify yet.

We know that Microsoft wrote both in 2008 and 2009 that Webmasters can add the crawl delay directive in their robots.txt file and it should slow the bot down.

In this case, these webmasters are using delays of 5 and 10, with no recourse from MSNBot. Take a look at events.berkeley.edu/robots.txt and you will see one example. But these webmasters are reporting extreme high crawl rates from MSNBot, which is not uncommon.

Forum discussion at Bing Forums.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Search Video Recaps

 
- YouTube
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: March 6, 2026

Mar 6, 2026 - 10:00 am
Search Video Recaps

Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Heat Continues, AI Mode Recipe Link Cards, ChatGPT Web Search With Fewer Links & AI-Generated Search Landing Pages

Mar 6, 2026 - 8:01 am
Google Search Engine Optimization

Google: Most Sites Don't Need To Disavow Links But That's Not All Sites

Mar 6, 2026 - 7:51 am
Bing Search

Bing Search Tests Go To Shopping Button

Mar 6, 2026 - 7:41 am
Bing Ads

Bing With Asian Owned Labels On Microsoft Ads

Mar 6, 2026 - 7:31 am
Google Ads

Google Local Service Ads Won't Credit Calls For Existing Clients (Not Lead)

Mar 6, 2026 - 7:21 am
 
Previous Story: Possible Google Removal Tool Bug: "You have already made this removal request"