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This is very very early and I don't have evidence of this myself, since I don't monitor rankings, but a single post at WebmasterWorld suggested there is a Bing update taking place.
textex, someone I trust at the forum, who has been a member of WebmasterWorld for almost ten years now, said:
Looks like an update....
So if there is a Bing update, there is a Yahoo update in the US and Canada.
Did you notice major changes in your Bing rankings?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Microsoft not only has their own search engine, but they also have their own iPod named the Zune. A couple months ago, Bing, Microsoft's search engine, announced enhancements to their entertainment results, including better integration with the music results and music players.
When it’s time to buy, we’ll offer you the ability to purchase and download songs from Zune, iTunes and Amazon.com MP3.
But days after the announcement, the feature didn't work with Microsoft's own Bing and Zune.
I spotted a thread at WebmasterWorld where someone was using Bing and also using a Zune (yea, pretty rare). The person was amazed to see that he can listen and buy songs via Bing on his Zune.
But you can, here is a picture:
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
When it comes to news search engines, it seems like all we talk about is Google News and rarely Yahoo or Bing News.
I spotted a WebmasterWorld thread with a rare post by someone included in the Bing News index. The publisher said, "My site has just been indexed in Bing News. And I like it."
He said he didn't request to get listed in Bing News, which, by the way, doesn't work. He was just included randomly and he loves what he sees.
He noticed an "uptick in retweets" and looked into it. It turned out to be Bing sending traffic to his site via Bing News.
Yes, Bing is way more selective than Google News. He also said that some of his content gets pulled into Bing News on a two-day delay. I am not sure if that is specific to his site being newly indexed or just the way Bing handles "news," which kind of doesn't make sense.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Bing announced they have revamped their map experience. The maps themselves were redone and actually, there are two different kinds. One for those who install Silverlight on their computers and AJAX version for those that do not install Sliverlight.
Chris Pendleton of Microsoft, I believe a huge map geek, explained the key points:
Very nice indeed! Bing and Google are constantly battling on their Maps products and it is a good thing to see.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Brian Smith was the first that I know of to report that Bing Shopping is now free for merchants to sign up with and list their products.
Brian Smith runs SingleFeed, a shopping search engine merchant feed service, that does what the name promises.
As I mentioned in my Search Engine Land piece, Bing Shopping was fee based and they changed the page to say it was free. There is also a PDF with more details.
As you know, Bing's Cashback program discontinued on July 31st. Bing quietly, I still don't see an announcement, is allowing merchants to submit their products to Bing Shopping for free now. The merchant submission form is over here. Again, I am not sure why they are keeping this so hush hush or if I missed an announcement from them.
They do have a forum dedicated to Bing Shopping Help. Carolyn Miller from Microsoft said in one thread:
Welcome to the Bing Shopping forum!
This forum is designed for merchants wishing to collaborate on best practices and ideas for the Bing Shopping program.
Carolyn Miller
adCenter Community Team PM
Forum discussion at Bing Shopping Help.
The online mapping products get cooler almost every day. The latest buzz is around Microsoft Street Slide, which is not live yet, but is currently being developed.
Here is a video that explains it better than I can in words:
There are more articles on this at Neowin, Google Maps Mania and Search Engine Land.
A Google Blogoscoped Forums thread points out some people are trying to do the same type of things on Google Maps via their API over here.
This is neat stuff.
Forum discussion at Google Blogoscoped Forums.
A WebmasterWorld thread has Zeus, someone well known in the SEO forum space as tracking the image search engines, as not speaking positively about Bing Image Search.
The thread talks how Bing is slower than Google to index new content. Which is often the case, simply cause Google is much faster than most search engines. But Zeus breaks it out to say that their image search is even more disappointing.
Zeus said that typically he sees at most 10% of his pages or images in Bing Image search, sometimes only 5% or less. He said:
Bing Image which in my case has 45 images listed of 22,000.
Now, Bing has made some very good strides and I believe many are rutting for them to gain some more share. Heck, I even think it would be a good idea and I am an Apple guy.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
If you login to Bing Webmaster Tools you may notice a large change. The whole thing has been totally redone!
The Bing Webmaster Blog currently has no mention of it yet. There is a single person in the Bing Forums who noticed it, and so did @suzukik on Twitter.
The three most noticeable changes that you see right away include:
I won't install Silverlight on my main machine, so there is no way I will personally be using this every day. Even more so, how can they remove the back link data? Maybe Yahoo Site Explorer will be replacing it? I hope so because right now, Bing is offering nothing.
Here are screen shots of the reports:
Home without Silverlight installed:
Overview without Silverlight installed:
Overview:
Dashboard:
Crawl Stats:
Index Stats:
Traffic Stats with Query Data:
Bing wrote a message to everyone who logs into Webmaster Tools, it reads:
Welcome to the new Bing Webmaster Tools. The site has been redesigned to be easier to use, with an intuitive design organized around three key areas: crawl, index and traffic. New features, such as Index Explorer and rich charting functionality, provide a comprehensive view into how Bing crawls and indexes your sites. We’ll continue to add to the Bing Webmaster Tools as we develop new features that empower you to make more informed decisions about your sites but we encourage you to send us your feedback, suggestions and questions to help determine how the site evolves. Check the Bing Webmaster Blog to stay updated on new features and developments.
Find answers to most of your questions in the help section, which includes links to a Getting Started guide and additional guides on topics such as: site ownership verification, Sitemaps, and the Bing index. If you still have questions, the Bing Webmaster Forums is a great resource for additional support.
Overall, I love the new look of the reports and how fluid they are. But like I said, two main killers for me. First is Silverlight and the second is no back link data.
Forum discussion at Bing Forums.
Update: At 9am (EST), Bing posted their blog post on this at the Bing Webmaster Blog.
Microsoft relaunched their search engine Bing on June 1, 2009, just over a year ago.
On June 1, 2009 Bing's market share, according to Hitwise was 5.25%. A year later, according to Hitwise it is 9.85% share. If you do the math, that is about 88% growth year-over-year, not too far under double growth!
Here are some of the latest stats from Hitwise:
Of course, growing share from 5% to 10% is nice, but it still shadows Google's share. In June 2009, Google had a share of 74.04%, June 2010 Google's share is 71.65, so that is a 3% decline.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Bing has released a section explained their advanced search operators that can be used on Bing.com. Here is a list of those explained operators:
Tedster in a WebmasterWorld thread explains the value of such operators:
Bing just published (and publicized) an extensive list of Advance Operators. What a look into their search technology this offers! For example, here's a description of the advanced operator norelax:
norelax: Only allow search word, phrase or word: in the constraint. Bing implements relaxcount for a 5+ word query by default; that is, the fifth word in a query and subsequent appears do not necessarily appear in results.Example: cry for you lyrics norelax:September
Remarks The effect of the syntax in this example is to specify that all returned results must contain september. In the absence of the norelax: operator, since there are 5 words in the query, Bing would augment with a relaxcount=+1, that could return documents that do not contain september.
SEOs, enjoy!
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
The Bing Blog announced that Microsoft is retiring MSNBot in place of BingBot on October 1, 2010.
So instead of MSNBot showing up in your log files, you should see BingBot in your log files. It should look something like:
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; bingbot/2.0 +http://www.bing.com/bingbot.htm)
Microsoft said that BingBot will continue to respect and honor the msnbot directives in the robots.txt file, so you do not need to update your robots.txt files yet. But if you are doing more advanced checking, you may need to update your personal scripts. It is also to note that if Microsoft "detect separate sets of directives for bingbot and for any of the older versions of Microsoft search bots (such as msnbot) or a set of directives for all crawlers, the directives for bingbot will take precedence."
WebmasterWorld's Bing moderator said, "So anyone herding msnbot using .htaccess or other means will need to start adjusting your software accordingly."
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Microsoft announced their new look yesterday, with a big push in entertainment and also a revamped iPhone App.
Matt McGee has a pretty detailed look at the Bing design changes, Elisabeth Osmeloski took a look at the expanded entertainment features and dug into the Bing iPhone app changes at Search Engine Land.
I wanted to show you a search result from before and after. The before picture is from the end of March, so fairly recent:
BEFORE:
AFTER:
Things seem more tightened up and cleaner. Overall, it seems people are happy with the new UI, new features and new refinements.
Forum discussion at Bing Community, DigitalPoint Forums & WebmasterWorld.
Now that Yahoo Publisher Network is done, where do publishers go when their earnings with Google AdSense falter? Well, if they are lucky enough to get into the Microsoft's Content Ads, aka PubCenter then they can use that as an alternative.
In fact, one publisher did so and is reporting at WebmasterWorld that he has been impressed with the earnings with PubCenter ads in the past few weeks. He said:
This last drop in adsense revenue pushed me to try Microsoft ads again and I am happy to report, it is paying what adsense paid before the drop (more on some days)!
I thought this may be temporary, but it's been a few weeks now and I'm impressed. The targeting is way better than it used to be and I can't tell you how good it feels to know there is another option that works.
Not everyone agrees and still says the targeting is off and the income is bad. Here is a sample ad to see how good or bad the targeting is, in live:
Are you liking Microsoft PubCenter or sticking with Google AdSense?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld
4 months ago Microsoft made a deal with Facebook to power some of their search results.
Today, if you do a search on Facebook, the web results are powered by Bing and more importantly, carry the Bing logo.
The Bing logo is only shown on the "web results" section of the Facebook results. But this is a major thing for Microsoft, showing their Bing logo on Facebook. It also gives Microsoft insight into the types of queries happening behind Facebook's Google blockade, which is invaluable.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
A WebmasterWorld thread has grassroots reporting from parents in the UK about Bing's market share.
It seems like many UK children are really loving Bing, Microsoft's search engine. From the parent's perspective, the kids are coming home and talking about Bing, not Google. They are also telling their parents that Bing is what the home pages are set to on their school computers.
Here are some quotes from the thread:
My 11 year old was using my computer at the weekend and I noticed they used bing.com without any prompting from me for or against. A friend said that is because bing.com is the default search engine in schools at the moment. My kid seems perfectly happy with it.
Watch out google, this is how the revolution begins!
I think I can help here. Many years back, I am pretty sure I heard on the BBC that Bill (Gates) made a deal with the British government to give computers to every school in the UK. Now i don't think they are in any way mandated to use Bing, but I expect they are set up that way by default.
But on top of that (not that I count for much) all five of the PC's in my house have Bing as the home page, and certainly, my kids (aged 9 and 10) use it by default. they certainly KNOW Google and use it alot as well, but they are the next generation - and the pretty picture counts.
As the moderator of the forum says, Bing is "Winning the hearts and minds" of these children.
Something for Google to worry about or this is just a few schools with Bing set as the default search engine?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Yesterday, during the Keynote with the SVP of Microsoft, Bing introduced a way to search Twitter and Facebook using bing.com/social.
As of 10pm (EST), 10 hours later, the feature which should have been live 10 hours ago, is still not live. I hope by the time this post goes live, that bing.com/social shows more than just an error page:
When it does go live, the features demoed should include:
But until then, it is kind of hard to play with.
A WebmasterWorld thread has one response that doesn't seem positive:
Ugh. UGH!
Anyway, time will tell.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Update: It does now seem to be live.
On Friday, Microsoft announced they are dropping the cashback program. Microsoft Cashback enticed searchers to try Bing over other search engines by giving them cash back after buying through a search ad.
I did the walk through on how cashback works a while back. I personally used it every now on then on big purchases, it was a great way to not just get a great deal, but to get money back on great deals.
Unfortunately for me, Microsoft said it didn't work and didn't bring in enough market share to keep it around. Cashback will be gone on July 30th at 9:00 pm PST. Microsoft said, "but after a couple of years of trying, we did not see the broad adoption that we had hoped for."
I always wondered how costly this program was, but I guess it was a marketing expense.
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.
Back in the day, Bing just couldn't properly handle 301 redirects but that issue seems to be coming to a close. We saw improvements on Bing's 301 handling both in October 2009 and November 2009. It appears Bing has gone on record this month that they have indeed made strides in their 301 handling.
301 redirects are known as permanent redirects. For example, I use a 301 redirect to redirect seoroundtable.com to seroundtable.com because many people mess up our name and link to the wrong place. 301 redirects are how this should be handled and tell the search engines that one URL has been permanently moved to a different URL.
A Bing Help thread has a webmaster claiming his 3.5 month issue with Bing and how they handled his 301 redirects is finally resolved. Bing's Program Manager, Brett Yount confirmed they did actually do something to improve this. Brett said:
While I can't provide the root cause, I can say that the team has been working on the fix for some time now and it appears to have helped other sites with similar issues as well.
Brett then gets all emotional and says:
I spend a great amount of time analyzing and then reporting trends to key teams within Bing. Sometimes it takes awhile to find a root cause out of the effects I present and sometimes it takes awhile to find the CORRECT fix--or even an interim fix to problems.However, as I have said in the past, I will say it again now:
I don't care if your site has 5 pages or 5,000,000, I will do my best to find a solution for you. If it appears that you have fallen off my radar, ping me again. I don't mind. If your site is being affected by a chronic issue, rest assured that all of us at Bing are working to find a solution for not just you, but everyone else out there suffering from the same issue. And from all of us at Bing, thank you for your patience.
Thanks Brett and the Bing team!
Forum discussion at Bing Help.
Bing announced they are testing adding Twitter posts directly in their search results. Both Google and Yahoo already do this, and now Bing is going this route. Bing did offer tweet answers in the web results and they do offer bing.com/twitter but this is new.
I personally do not see the test, so here are screen shots from the Bing blog:
Yes, a section for "social results" for hot queries.
For navigational queries, Bing will show you the most popular shared tweets from that site.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Did you ever want to remove a site from Bing Webmaster Tools? Were you ever concerned that by removing a site from Bing Webmaster Tools would have a negative result to your rankings in Bing? No? Good, you are right.
A Bing Community thread has one webmaster asking this question and a Microsoft representative responded. Brett Yount, Bing's Program Manager said:
No. Adding/removing sites does not have any effect on indexing.
Of course, most of you knew this was the case, but having this come from the "horses mouth" does indeed help alleviate any concern there may have been.
Forum discussion at Bing Community.
A Bing Community thread has Bing's program manager, Brett Yount confirming that Bing prefers hyphens in the URLs as a word separator.
He said:
Hyphens are the preferred character for separating two words in URLs.
Google also uses hyphens as word separators so it is a good thing to know both engines handle them pretty much the same way.
Nothing ground breaking here, but a solid SEO point to have in your toolkit.
Forum discussion at Bing Community.
During Yusuf Mehdi's keynote last week at SES, Yusuf said Microsoft is behind Google due mostly on how they handle the long-tail keyword. eWeek explores this in more detail saying:
Microsoft fell so far behind Google in the search engine market because it failed to retrieve relevant results for a long line of less popular queries, a senior Microsoft executive told the crowd at the Search Engine Strategies show here March 25.
Such was the key reason Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president of the Online Audience Group for Microsoft Bing, offered for why Google is light-years ahead of Microsoft in the search market. Google commands 65 percent of the U.S. share search market, compared with 11.5 percent for Microsoft Bing.
Mehdi, responding to a keynote host's observation that Microsoft was late to the Internet and search, said, "We missed the boat early on that the focus was about the long tail. We actually focused a lot on the head of the queries. ... It turned out the long tail was much more important."
It seems that webmasters and SEOs agree that although Bing is pretty good at the short types of keywords but when it comes to longer, more specific keyword searches, they don't do a great job.
Do you agree?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Bing announced feature upgrades to Bing at SES New York yesterday, if you missed it, you can read our live blog coverage of the announcement. The announcement included the following updates to Bing:
Here are some screen captures:
Overall, the new features are welcomed to Bing.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
As many of you know, Microsoft is conducting a major ad blitz in the UK in order to capture market share for Bing, their search engine.
Bing's product manager sent me a link to one of the new commercials, which is now on YouTube. Here is a video of the new commercial:
What do you think? It looks similar to the US commercials, just with UK accents.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
If you visit MSN.com today, you may notice a new look and feel for the site. The beta design is now the new official look for MSN. Like it or not, this is the new look for now.
Greg Sterling reports that about 50% of the Bing search queries are driven from the MSN portal. So this new design may or may not have an impact on that. 50% is major and clearly Microsoft is aware of that.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
There are reports that Microsoft is going to do a huge ad push in the UK in an effort to capture market share there. Currently, Microsoft's Bing has a 3% share of search, whereas Google holds about a 90% share.
Here is the news:
Microsoft is to launch a multimillion-pound TV ad campaign for its search engine Bing, as part of a major marketing push designed to challenge Google's dominance of the UK search market, MediaGuardian.co.uk can reveal.
Microsoft will certainly have its work cut out winning over consumers – it currently holds about a 3% share of the search market while Google controls about 90%.
"This is a big moment – we are taking out our slingshots and taking on Goliath," said the managing director and vice-president of consumer and online at Microsoft UK, Ashley Highfield, adding that he believed Bing met a real desire from both consumers and advertisers.
A WebmasterWorld thread has some comments, here is one:
In the UK I believe there is a large number of people who do not like Microsoft and unless they can hide their identity as far as Bing is concerned, I doubt they will make any great inroads however much money they pour into Bing. And that mention of taking out their slingshots and taking on Goliath is a joke! Who is the real Goliath between the two companies?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
We rarely ever talk about Bing's outstanding image search, but I spotted a thread today in the Bing Community forums on that topic.
In short, one webmaster complained that Bing had about 50% of the images from his site, when compared to Google. So Google had about 50 pictures from this guys site in their index, coming up for a site command. Bing had about half that.
Brett Yount forwarded the complaint the the image search team at Bing and when he received a response, he copy and pasted it in the forums. This is what they said:
All in all I would say we have ok coverage for this site. We do not include all images that we know about in our index -- it is quite plausible that we decided to not include certain images from this site due to better relative ranking of other sites during crawl time. We should see its image search rank go up (and our coverage of it improve) as the site gets more popular and the images get reused and referred to by more sites.
This is really no different than web search - Google, Bing and other search engines may not consider a page worthy of crawling or indexing due to it's popularity or lack there of. This works the same way with images, according to Bing.
Forum discussion at Bing Community.
A Bing Community thread talks about Bing's crawlers and indexers ability in following chains of redirects. A redirect chain is when you have two or more URLs that are being redirects to another URL. For example, if I have domain.com/pageA redirect to domain.com/pageB and then from domain.com/pageB to domain.com/pageC - that is a redirect chain.
Search engines typically crawl them fine, if they are done using 301 redirects. But it takes them a longer time to figure multiple redirects in a chain of redirects. I believe most search engines can handle them, but your job as an SEO is to make sure to limit the number of redirects to one or so, so there is not a long chain.
Brett Yount from Bing even said they do not like redirect chains. In the Bing Community, he said:
While we do not like redirect chains, we are able to follow them. But if you have a 302 redirect in the chain--even if there is a 301 after it--expect that the page may not get all of the potential rank or may not get indexed at all.
Forum discussion at Bing Community.
A Bing Community thread has a Microsoft Bing representative telling SEOs that W3C complaint code can help with indexing content.
Brett Yount, the program manager at Bing Webmaster Center, said:
Clean code can help quite a bit in indexing on all the SEs. If you are just starting out, I suggest finding a W3C compliant template.
We all know that Google said time and time again that validated code does not get a ranking boost, but they never said it wouldn't help with indexing and crawling. Clean code, which can be validated through the W3C's tools, can make for more efficient crawling and possibly faster indexing.
This is at least according to Bing.
Forum discussion at Bing Community.
On occasions, I hear in the forums complaints that people are going to Google.com or Bing.com and are being redirected to a localized version, outside of their local. For example, a Bing Community thread reports one user in the US being redirected to Bing France and a Google Web Search Help thread has another user from Brooklyn, New York complaining about being redirected to Google Puerto Rico.
Why might this happen? Brett Yount from the Bing Webmaster team ventured a guess. Of course, he can not talk for Google, but he is paid to talk for Bing. Brett said:
I'll preface this by saying I don't know the exact answer. However, it is probable that some servers were down for upgrades, etc. and you got routed to the next available server which happened to be France for a short period.
Interesting, so if servers are offline or overloaded, they may redirect you to a different server outside of your region. I never heard this explanation but it does seem somewhat logical. I am not sure if this is a good thing for usability and confusion, but technically, it does make some sense.
Forum discussion at Bing Community.
A Bing Community thread reports from one webmaster that someone is masking MSNBot around as a browser, either Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox. Here are the reported IPs and UserAgent's being reporting by this webmaster:
The following IP addresses are from MSN's search bots, but use what appears to be just normal user agents.
65.55.109.22
65.55.109.106
65.55.109.118
65.55.109.119
65.55.109.120
65.55.109.162
65.55.109.209
65.55.109.212
65.55.110.16
65.55.110.21
65.55.110.41
65.55.110.88
65.55.110.107
65.55.110.121
65.55.110.132
65.55.110.164The user agent looks like this "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SLCC1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; InfoPath.2)"
This is not the first time Microsoft Bing has been accused of masking their bots as browser useragents. We had a similar report back in September where MSNBot was using Mozilla by way of UserAgent.
Brett Yount, Bing's representative, said, "Could you send this information to bwmc@microsoft.com and I will have the crawling team investigate?"
So currently, this is not confirmed, but it is weird.
Forum discussion at Bing Community.
A Bing Community thread has reports that when webmasters authenticate domains within Bing Webmaster Tools, the next day, the domains are no longer listed. Supposedly there are several reports about this in the past week or so.
Here is one report:
I (for the very first time) submitted several URL's, and I also authenticated my website by adding a LiveSearchSiteAuth.xml to my website sites, and I also submitted a sitemap.xml. They all showed yesterday.
But when I login today, I don't see any of my URL's from yesterday.
Brett Yount from Bing said that he is really not sure what is going on but he doesn't seem to be the only one reporting the issue. Brett said:
This is the third or fourth post I've seen today regarding this problem. I'm contacting our devs to find out more information.
This is not a confirmed report yet, but there seems to be something fishy going on here.
Forum discussion at Bing Community.
A WebmasterWorld thread is reporting that Bing is advertising their search engine on Intellitxt. Intellitxt are those ads you see inline articles, where you mouse over a word and an annoying ad pops up. I personally find those ads to be incredibly annoying, intrusive and invasive. But many publishers use them and according to the WebmasterWorld post, Bing is using it to advertise their search engine.
The thread said:
At a very popular UK website I noticed an Intellitxt ad featuring a Bing Search of the phrase in the ad. Good idea by Bing.
I do not have a screen shot, but if you see one, please send it my way.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
A WebmasterWorld thread has some positive news for the Microsoft Bing team! The thread is praising Bing for speeding up their indexing and ranking of new pages, updated content and new web sites.
This comes several weeks after Bing declared they were slow at indexing new sites. So I am happy that webmasters, at least some, are happy with the speed of Bing's crawler and indexer.
Mack, the forum moderator summed it up, saying:
Bing is getting quick! Even when it comes to new sites/domains.
Two additional webmasters agreed. To be fair, I have seen a slow down of complaints in the Bing forums about complaints of their sites not being indexed. But that can be for many reasons.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld .
A complaint from a Carpet store owner in the Bing Community shows how Bing is sending his customers to his competitors. If you search for [carpetswarehouse.com] on Bing, and mouse over the "Best Match Information" arrow on the right of the result, Bing will show the wrong information.
In fact, Bing is showing the phone number to his competitor. Here is a picture:
The Carpet guy said:
Bing is showing. "Customer service 800-686-2442." That is my competitor's phone number. How do I change to my number 1-800-565-5021.
Now, Google has had this problem in the past with Google Maps. In fact, this comes up on occasion with Google.
Bing's community manager, Brett Yount, explained how this can be fixed at Bing. He said:
Please contact support using the form located at:In the drop down box, please select, "Change Best Match Information"
I wonder how long this change will take? I also wonder how Bing got his competitor's phone number.
Forum discussion at Bing Community.
Update: Nice, Bing fixed it the same day.
Brett Yount from Bing has confirmed a bug with Bing's SafeSearch filter in a Bing Community thread.
The issue is that when you set your Bing Search preferences to the SafeSearch setting of "Moderate Filter adult images and videos but not text from your search results," it doesn't seem to work as described.
It should only block out adult images and videos, but leave adult oriented text in the search results.
On Friday afternoon, Brett confirmed the issue and said a fix will come in March. He said:
I recieved word that this is a known issue with a fix scheduled for March.
I have not seen many complaints about this to date.
Forum discussion at Bing Community.
A Bing Community thread has Bing's program manager, Brett Yount, saying that they do not index the destination pages of a 302 redirect. Let me quote you what he said:
We do not index 302 redirected pages, so this is probably the main issue for not indexing your home page.
The site in question here is www.kerala.travel. As you can see, as I write this post, the site is not indexed by Bing.
Now, I assume Brett meant to say that a 302 redirect to a page will not block the page from being indexed. But rather, if the only way for Bing to crawl to the page is via a 302 redirect, Bing will not index it. If there are other links to the destination page, then Bing will likely index it.
Or maybe I am wrong and Bing will not index 302 redirected pages.
Forum discussion at Bing Community.
Microsoft's search engine, Bing, announced they have revised the Webmaster FAQs into a single 28 page PDF document. The document can be downloaded over here.
It has 82 detailed questions and answers, organized into 12 categories. The questions and answers are ironically hyperlinked in the PDF document, but not available as a web page. I guess those Q&As won't be indexed too well by their own search engine (yes, search engines do crawl PDFs, but you know).
Brett Yount, Bing's forum rep, posted a thread in the Bing Community announcing this as well. He said, "our Technical Writer, Rick Dejarnette, combined our FAQs into one PDF for easy reference."
Forum discussion at Bing Community.
I reported this last week at Search Engine Land, that Microsoft furthered their search deal with Facebook. In short, Bing will now power global Facebook searches and include fuller search results.
Now that the search industry had some time to digest the news and here are some quotes from the WebmasterWorld thread:
Each page view with a search "powered by Bing" will be a tiny advertisement for Bing. Google will be hit hard by this. Finally, Google gets what it deserves, after having ignored important needs (like transparency and privacy) from publishers and webusers for so long. What joy!
I would have serious issues with FB if I knew Google had access to the FB data coupled with their famous virtually non-expiring, unique tracking cookie.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Canonical URLs and domains to most SEOs are a common issue they run across. How each search engine handles the various patterns of URLs that seem or are duplicate to each other, may differ.
In a Bing Community thread, there is a comment from Brett Yount, a Program Manager at Bing Webmaster Center, on how Bing typically handles WWW vs non-WWW issues. By that I mean, if you both the http://example.com/ and http://www.example.com/ URLs return the same page, without redirection. Brett said:
It really doesn't matter if the site your link is residing on is www or non-www. More important is the structure of the URL they are using to link to you--especially if your site is not canonicalized using 301 redirects. When not redirected, we treat the non-www and the www version of your site as two different sites, so if you have links out there with and without the www, your whole site rank is affected. Canonicalizing your site to one or the other will automatically cause us to combine all the links and apply them to the chosen version of your site and may help increase your site rank.
Forum discussion at Bing Community.
A funny WebmasterWorld thread has an SEO scratching his head in wonderment as to how he ranks so well in Bing, without really having any SEO reason to be. Let me quote what he said:
Right now my two-month-old site, with NO backlinks established but good internal content and linking (not SEO'd, just logically laid out), is #1 in Bing for a term that surprised the heck out of me... related, yes, but seriously American Express or Mastercard or any number of established entities should be #1 on these terms. They are #2 and #3.At first I thought it was maybe some kind of local thing... that those companies are nowhere near me, but my site IS near me and therefore it's showing local relevant results first? But nope, if I remote into a server in a datacenter on the other side of the country and run a search from there it's #1 there too. Crazy...
In Google, the site is half way down page 3 for the same term, about where I expected it would be given its age and competition.
I'm certainly not going to call up Bing and complain about it, but it's freakin weird.
I was hoping, like for me, the thread would make you smile after a long week.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
As you know, I track the search marketing forums, including many of the official search engine forums, to find the latest breaking news and issues that are important to the community. I pay particular close attention to what the official search engine representatives say in these forums.
It appears that Brett Yount, the community lead at the Bing Forums and Program Manager of Bing Webmaster Center, has gone missing in action. His last post was 20 days ago, on January 7th in a Bing Community thread.
I know he may have recently said things he probably shouldn't have. Did that lead to him being fired or replaced? I don't know. I certainly hope not. Brett was a ray of sun for people like me, who like to see search reps who are honest, forthcoming and simply good people.
Brett - we miss you - please come back. There are tons of webmasters who need your help and guidance in the Bing forum.
Forum discussion at Bing Community.
Update: Bing Tweeted:
Brett’s taking some personal time off. Unrelated to forums, for the record ^az
The Bing Search Blog announced that they have now made their search suggestions more current. Now, Bing will update the search suggestions every 15 minutes or so, to take into account breaking news and current trends.
For example, the Australian Open is going on right now and here is me typing [aus] into Bing:
Google already does this with their search suggestions, so it is nice to see Bing go this route as well. Now, Bing will have to deal with questions about censorship of trending topics.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Microsoft's Bing blog announced they will reduce the time frame they store search data, from 18 months to only 6 months. This is in response to the European Union's request that search companies reduce the time they store such data. Microsoft Bing is the first major search engine to comply with those demands.
Bing said:
Specifically, we are reducing the amount of time we store IP addresses from searchers to 6 months. Currently we keep that information for 18 months before we delete it. Generally, when Bing receives search data we do a few things: first, we take steps to separate your account information (such as email or phone number) from other information (what the query was, for example). Then, after 18 months we take the additional step of deleting the IP address and any other cross session IDs associated with the query. Under the new policy, we will continue to take all the steps we applied previously – but now we will remove the IP address completely at 6 months, instead of 18 months. We think this gives us the right balance between making search better for consumers (we use the data to improve the service we offer) and providing greater protection for the privacy of our users.
Greg Sterling at Search Engine Land has additional history and insight into this change.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
A WebmasterWorld thread has discussion about a search on Bing for [digital camera]. If you search on Bing for that query, you will not only see search results that match [digital camera] but Bing will show you other related queries and their search results.
Bing will show you 3 additional results for each of the following related queries, they include: Digital Camera Brands, Digital Camera Types, Top 10 Digital Cameras, Digital Camera Repair and Digital Camera Accessories. Here is a video showing this:
The interesting part here is that this is somewhat like the Google knows best but not fully. Here Bing is showing you what you queried for first and then shows you other search results that they think would be useful.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
There seems to be a lot of confusion out there in the paid search ad space. If the Microsoft & Yahoo do end up closing their deal, which seems likely to me, Yahoo Search Marketing will no longer exist.
The Yahoo Search Marketing console and campaigns you currently run will be either automatically imported into Microsoft adCenter or you will have to manually make that change. Microsoft adCenter will power the ads on Yahoo, Yahoo won't power those ads.
A WebmasterWorld thread seems to have a lot of confusion over this point. Advertisers seem to not want to spend too much time on either adCenter or YSM optimizing their campaigns in fear that the deal will go through and that time would be wasted. I for one think that this is still going to take a really long time, so go ahead and optimize the campaigns. But if the deal does go through and they do begin the migration, the migration will be from Yahoo to Microsoft, not the other way around.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
One of the latest comments to come from Microsoft's Bing representative in the Bing Forums was that they consider themselves to be "fairly slow." Fairly slow at indexing new sites and new pages, that is.
Brett Yount, the Program Manager at Bing Webmaster Center, said in a Bing Forums thread:
It is well known in the industry that MSNbot is fairly slow.
Did he just say that? For real?
So what is Microsoft's solution to get new sites into their index? Well, either spam Digg or Yahoo Buzz to be discovered or post a message in the Site not in index thread at Bing Forums and they will manually add you. Yes, there is a forum thread pretty much acting as a URL submit form. How 1995 of them.
Forum discussion at Bing Forums.
Two weeks ago, we reported that Bing doesn't support the canonical tag at all. I kind of blasted Brett Yount, the Product Manager of Bing Webmaster Center, that he kept on saying Bing uses it as a "hint."
Today he comes back into the forum and answers a question related to it in a Bing Forum thread. Brett said, "to my knowledge, we have very little support for the canonical tag."
Brett, is it a "hint" or nothing at all. "Little support" is not the same as no support, which is what we heard from others directly at Bing. Also, what does "little support" mean when it comes to the canonical tag? Does it mean that you treat the canonical tag as a 301 redirect or not? It can't mean you do both - can it? Maybe it means that if there is a canonical tag and a 301 redirect in place, doing the same action, Bing will treat it as a redirect (I am being sarcastic here).
I just don't get it.
Forum discussion at Bing Forum.
Here is the weird Bing comment for the day. Brett Yount, the Program Manager at Bing Webmaster Center, told webmasters to submit their site to Digg or Yahoo Buzz to help get their pages indexed. I kid you not!
A Bing Forums thread has Brett saying, and I quote:
If your site pages have good content, submit them to buzz and digg. Both have a high chance of getting your page indexed.
Of course this makes sense. Get a link from a popular site and a search engine will find that link and hopefully index your site/pages afterwards. But I just find it weird that a search representative would specifically name Digg and/or Buzz. I mean, why not mention something else or just talk about the concept in general. Brett could have said, to get your pages indexed quicker, make sure to get links from sites we crawl on a frequent basis.
One day Brett and I are going to meet in person and I hope he doesn't punch me out. ;-)
Forum discussion at Bing Forums.
Ever do a search on Bing and see shopping results come up, where one of the links are to a "guides" area? For example, search for [buy coffee maker] and you will see the following results:
There are two "guides" listed here for this query. The first goes to How Stuff Works and the second goes to .
A WebmasterWorld thread asks, how does one get to be placed in these guides. It is a good question, I am not sure. Is it purely algorithmic? Is it from a set database of guides only? I suspect these are trusted sites that are pre-coded to be considered "guides" and thus be listed for matching queries in Bing.
If you know anything more about these Bing shopping guides, let us know.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
A WebmasterWorld thread and adCenter Forum thread have reports that Microsoft adCenter is reporting that clicks are not being charged. Yes, the adCenter reports are showing a $0.00 cost per click in their reports.
Here are some of the reports from the advertisers:
Whilst I'd love this to be real, looks like a bug as clicks priced at 0.00 aren't so common!No matter which report I call up - I'm not being charged (according to the reports) for clicks.
Yes, I'm seeing the same thing. All reports yesterday and today show $0.00.
I'm guessing we'll see this resolved Monday morning. On the other hand, it might be Microsoft's way of thanking us for our business in 2009 ;)
Many suspect this is some sort of reporting glitch. I suspect so to. But it would be nice if it was not a glitch and Microsoft gave some of their advertisers a nice New Years bonus.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and adCenter Forum.
Update: I guess this is a bug, @adCenter tweeted:
Update 2: Tuesday, January 5th at 11am (EST) @adCenter tweeted the issue has been resolved.
A WebmasterWorld thread and an older Bing Forums thread has discussion from webmasters over the issue of Microsoft Bing's web crawler, MSNBot, crawling file names that do not exist on a specific site.
This reminders me of the ongoing issue of Bing creating fake referrals in webmaster log files. This has been going on for years, where Microsoft claims they have fixed it, but never really has.
In this specific case, it seems like Bing is creating file names on a specific site to crawl. Wel, they are not creating files, just trying to fetch pages that do not and never have existed on a specific site. I am not sure if this is a Bing issue or a webmaster issue.
A long time WebmasterWorld member explained the issue:
In what is apparently a rather old bad behavior, msnbot has a practice of regularly requesting totally manufactured URIs that appear to be designed to trigger 404 errors. Here are two sample log entries of the two styles of bogus URIs msnbot requests:
'65.55.207.126'¦Tue, 15 Dec 2009 20:39:49 -0500¦'msnbot/2.0b (+http://search.msn.com/msnbot.htm)'¦'*/*'¦'/ADBF3C7AB534E8356F30D8AC05291640_00000.temp019f.html'¦''
'65.55.207.28'¦Wed, 16 Dec 2009 05:46:22 -0500¦'msnbot/2.0b (+http://search.msn.com/msnbot.htm)'¦'*/*'¦'/000166709_00001.temp00be.html'¦''The requests ALWAYS take on one of the formats above starting with either a 32byte GUID or a nine digit integer.
In the Bing thread, another person said:
For many many years, msnbot has been crawling my sites looking for files that have never existed... i'm trying to figure out why...
the filenames have changed slightly in recent times but they have been similar in structure since the beginning... they are something like 000092601_00002.temp0001.htm... in other words, 9 numbers underscore 5 numbers dot temp 4 numbers dot htm... the search for these is all over my server's directory tree...I'll emphasize once more that these files have never existed on my site and i have no clue how msnbot may have picked them up...
Honestly, I feel bad that I am always beating up on Microsoft. I know they are new to the game, when you compare them to Google. But I have to report these issues.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld & Bing Forums.
There is this old and upsetting thread in the Bing Forums about how Bing handles the canonical tag. The thread is filled with misinformation. Matt McGee's post at Search Engine Land a week ago says it clearly.
Bing says it's still working on supporting the canonical tag on a single domain, and suggests webmasters should rely on other means to manage duplicate content.
You got that right, 11 months ago, Google, Yahoo and Bing announced support for the Canonical tag. As far as I know, only Google really uses it and they even added cross domain canonical support this month. Where is Bing at this? Well, in the next several months they hope to support a single domain use of the canonical tag and hopefully soon after the cross domain support. So it would have taken Bing over a year since they announced support of this tag to actually support it?
I am not too upset about that, to be honest. What I am more upset about is that official Bing support representatives are pretty much lying in the Bing Forums. Brett Yount, the Product Manager of Bing Webmaster Center said:
accourding to our blog post, http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/webmaster/archive/2009/02/12/partnering-to-help-solve-duplicate-content-issues.aspx, the canonical tag is used as a hint only.
No, it is not used as a hint or anything. It is not used period, not yet. Maybe in four months, but not yet.
Forum discussion at Bing Forums.
This is a hoax, this is not true, but it spread around the internet over the weekend and I found it pretty funny. Again, this is a comic, who did a skit of some sort. Microsoft confirmed this is not a real employee or ex-employee at Microsoft.
The video portrays a disgruntled ex-Microsoft employee describing how he was fired by Microsoft's CEO, Steve Ballmer, over not saying "Bing" with enthusiasm.
If you know the jokes about Ballmer, this is pretty funny.
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.
There are a few reports in a Bing Forum thread that adding a site to Bing Webmaster Tools might not work. Specifically, if the URL or domain contains a hyphen (dash) such as www.best-domain.com.
Brett Yount from the Bing Webmaster team confirmed the bug, saying:
Currently, we are having a few difficulties which I just received confirmation from the indexing team. They are currently working on it, but said that if you try a couple times, it should work. If not, and your site isn't in the index at all , please post on the not in index thread and I will work to get your home page (only) into the index.
I personally tried adding a domain with a hyphen and it worked for me on the first try. So maybe it is resolved or maybe those specific domains have other issues?
Forum discussion at Bing Forum.
Brett Yount from the Bing Webmaster Team dropped a hint in the Bing Forums that they may add the Bing Page Score (similar to Google's PageRank) to the MSN Toolbar.
Bing has what they call Bing Page Score when you login to their Bing Webmaster Center. Someone asked in the thread, "is it possible to enable page rank in bing toolbar?"
Soon after, Brett Yount from Bing responded saying:
We might once we complete the rework of that tool, which will be Fall earliest. Good news is, there are some changes in the works due in May/June to many things important to the webmasters frequenting these forums.
So there are two things here:
(1) Bing's Page Score may come to their Toolbar.
(2) They will be reworking "that tool," which I believe is talking about Page Score specifically.
Forum discussion at Bing Forums.
Here is one more oddity to add to Microsoft Bing's web crawler, MSNBot. Why on earth are people reporting that MSNBot is crawling the same page twice, once for the compressed version and then once again for the uncompressed version? Technically, it should probably only crawl once and it should opt for the compressed, gzip version - don't you think?
We have two threads complaining about this, one oldish one at WebmasterWorld and another at Bing Forums. Let me quote the Bing thread:
I've notice that bing is crawling each page of my website twice, first making an HTTP 1.1 request and getting a compressed response then immediately issuing an HTTP 1.0 request to receive the same page without gzip compression
The following lines from my log show the issue (there are thousands more similar occurrences):
65.55.207.74 - - [13/Dec/2009:14:58:42 +0000] "GET /specimen/235698/ HTTP/1.1" 200 1742 "-" "msnbot/2.0b (+http://search.msn.com/msnbot.htm)"
65.55.207.74 - - [13/Dec/2009:14:59:06 +0000] "GET /specimen/235698/ HTTP/1.0" 200 4259 "-" "msnbot/2.0b (+http://search.msn.com/msnbot.htm)"
65.55.106.209 - - [13/Dec/2009:15:03:08 +0000] "GET /specimen/250262/ HTTP/1.1" 200 1733 "-" "msnbot/2.0b (+http://search.msn.com/msnbot.htm)"
65.55.106.209 - - [13/Dec/2009:15:03:14 +0000] "GET /specimen/250262/ HTTP/1.0" 200 4164 "-" "msnbot/2.0b (+http://search.msn.com/msnbot.htm)"
This seems a waste of bandwidth and completely defeats the point of supporting http compression.
Indeed a waste of bandwidth and yes, it defeats the point of supporting HTTP compression.
A Bing representative, Brett Yount said:
could you please mail this information to bwmc@microsoft.com and I will get our crawling team to check it out?
But we have no confirmation from Bing on why this issue is occurring or when it will be fixed. Like I said, just one more oddity to add to MSNBot's crawl behavior.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Bing Forums.
I spotted a useful tidbit for SEOs in the Bing Forums today. Brett Yount from Bing Webmaster Center team explained how Bing picks up on 301 redirects.
Brett said it can take two to three crawls from Bing to register a 301 redirect in their index. Brett said:
By design, our crawler usually takes 2-3 crawls before it registers the redirect.
I wonder how many crawls Google takes to do the same thing? I can see why you would want to wait at least for a second crawl to confirm a 301 redirect is indeed legit.
We had some reports recently that Bing is handling 301s much better now than they have in the past.
Forum discussion at Bing Forums.
Bing went offline for about 30 minutes. I captured a screen shot of Microsoft's search engine having issues about mid-way through. Here it is:
TechCrunch said it was down for about 30 minutes. Twitter was buzzing about the news, and there were threads at Bing Community & WebmasterWorld.
Bing tweeted when they came back online:
This may be the first time that Bing.com has been down in its relatively short history.
Forum discussion at Bing Community & WebmasterWorld.
Update: Bing blog has a post on this.
Microsoft made buzz yesterday with the announcements on the Bing Maps blog and Bing Search Blog.
Greg Sterling explains it well at Search Engine Land as "Bing Maps breaks new ground in online mapping even as it plays a bit of catch up with Google."
The augmented reality comes in where Microsoft overlays data on those maps in a more social way. Microsoft explains:
Photosynth and Silverlight are the underlying technologies in Bing Maps that connect everything and help provide the more seamless experience. Based on Seadragon and Photo Tourism concepts, Photosynth lets us literally “stitch” together photographs to provide more realistic view of locations as they appear in real life. Photosynth-enabled Streetside imagery is built on geometric models that are reconstructed underneath the imagery to provide a truly 3D experience that shows locations as they are in real life.
The screen shots at the various blogs are neat, the only downside is the requirement to install Silverlight (I am a mac user). For more coverage of this, see Techmeme.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
There is some early discussion over at WebmasterWorld that Microsoft Bing has updated their search index. Many webmasters are discussing changes in rankings in this and other forums (which are hard to link to).
Here is what WebmasterWorld moderator, martinibuster wrote:
Bing engineers may need to refine their trust algos. I'm seeing a SERP where Bing is giving a poor quality subdomain a pass because the main domain has a high amount of inbound links (nearly a million). I think Bings method for determining sites likely to be authoritative needs tweaking.
Interestingly, Bing produces another result not seen in the other search engines that is actually pretty good.
For this site, I can tell you Bing sends up more traffic than Yahoo.
The last Bing update we reported was in late October.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
About a week ago, Bing announced they have taken Bing UK (www.bing.co.uk) out of beta. They basically said, you can now get more relevant UK results when in the UK and searching in the UK. Here is a snippet from the blog post:
When you search for Football, what kind of answers do you expect to find. Well, I guess it depends on where you are doing the asking, if you are in the UK you probably don’t want to see NFL schedules. You probably mean what we in the US call soccer. Well today, millions of searchers in the UK can rest assured that Bing knows what they are talking about. We are excited to announce today that Bing in the UK is shedding its beta tag. We want to congratulate our pals over in the UK on a huge milestone.
A HighRankings Forum thread is taking issue with this. Two searchers from the UK were not satisfied with the localized version of Bing. They said:
I did a study yesterday and the example they provided (Football) still returns the NFL - something they said that the UK 'wouldn't be interested in'. The universal search results are even worse with US today results of 'American Football' being returned (and two images of an American Football).
You are certainly right, doesn't look like Bing UK has any UK inteligence, I just did a simple search for the word 'analyse' , and the no.1 result returned was spelt with a 'z' , looks like Bing has a long, long way to go yet eh Andy!
I personally tried a search for football in Bing.com and Bing.co.uk and I am seeing tailored results for each region. Yes, NFL.com comes up in the UK, but not in the top result. Since I am not from the UK, it is hard for me to judge.
Forum discussion at HighRankings Forum.
I was all giddy when Wolfram|Alpha demo'ed back in May. The search engine, a fact engine, is filled with so much information and the results are provided in such great detail that this is one of the most, if not the most, useful publicly accessible fact engines available. As you can tell, I am a huge fan. Like I said then, it does not replace a Google but I know when to go to Wolfram and use it for specific queries.
Bing finally officially announced a deal with them where they are syndicating Wolfram|Alpha's data in their own search results. I personally do not see it live yet but here is a picture of how it might work:
I think Google should sign up with Wolfram as well. :)
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and believe it or not, also at Google Webmaster Help.
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 program.
There are actually detailed merchant guides (PDF) and optimization tips (PDF) for Bing shopping available.
At DigitalPoint Forums, I spotted one merchant who was kicked out of the program. Honestly, I have never seen a merchant complain online that his merchant Cashback account was terminated. This is the email he received from Microsoft:
Dear ***,Thank you for your participation in the Bing cashback program.
This letter is to notify you that pursuant to Section 12 of the Bing cashback Merchant Agreement, Microsoft is terminating your Bing cashback Merchant Agreement and DinoDirect's participation in the Bing cashback program.
As per Section 12 of the Bing cashback Merchant Agreement:
Upon termination, suspension or discontinuation of the Program or Merchant's participation in the Program: (a) all Listings will be promptly removed; (b) Merchant remains responsible for a period of 15 days for tracking Qualifying Sales that occurred prior to termination and paying the associated Sales Payouts; and (c) after the conclusion of such period, Microsoft shall refund any outstanding amounts in Merchant's Account.
Clearly, the site that was terminated was Dino Direct, but why exactly, is not clear. I was unable to find the Bing cashback merchant agreement.
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.
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 UK campaigns, were getting a tiny fraction of impressions and clicks.
One advertiser emailed Microsoft and received this interesting response:
We see that your program was opened in 2006.
We see that you are receiving some impressions but not nearly as many as you could be. Sometimes when a campaign or ad group is not getting very much activity for a long period of time the ad will start showing less and less because it is not performing. That may be what has happened with your campaign.
My suggestion is to start two brand new campaigns and copy all of the data over from your existing campaigns.
We know adCenter has hit campaigns for low quality ranking factors in the past, but to have two campaigns, exactly the same, with the difference being UK versus US, that seems interesting. What I find even more interesting is that Microsoft here is suggesting the advertiser build a brand new campaign and just copy over the data.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
One thing I always see in the search optimization forums are complaints about how Microsoft Bing handles 301 redirects. I actually stopped covering the complaints because I saw them all too often. Today, I have some possible good news.
Steve, a senior member at WebmasterWorld posted a thread at WebmasterWorld that he believes Bing has finally figured out how to handle 301 redirects. He said:
MSN/Bing appears to have finally figured out how to follow 301 redirects, discarding the old URL and indexing/not-penalizing the destination URLs. This has lead to a lot more URLs from older authority domains coming into the index, and a pretty huge improvement in Bing's results, including ranking the best pages for a domain for a query instead of second and third choices.
If this continues I see it as a fix of one of the two main weaknesses of Bing compared to google (with the other being a smaller index of obscure stuff).
Finally, some very significant positive news from Bing... unless it all reverts again one of these days and all these 301 destination pages disappear again.
I have not seen any other reports of positive signs of Bing's 301 handling, but this is a good early sign.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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 has a post by an advertiser who said he received an email from Microsoft that this update is coming. Here is a copy of that email:
In the coming weeks, we are upgrading Microsoft adCenter DesktopBeta with new features to help you save time managing your advertising campaigns.
The first time you access adCenter Desktop after this upgrade, you will be prompted to download a new version of the tool. The new version will replace the installed version, as well as all local data. To avoid any data loss, please upload changes from adCenter Desktop to your online adCenter account or save all your local account data, as instructed below, before November 6.
Save your adCenter changes before installing the new adCenter Desktop version
To ensure a successful transition to the new version of adCenter Desktop, please complete one of the following options before November 6:* Upload changes to adCenter: In adCenter Desktop, click Upload Changes to upload any changes you’ve made in Desktop to your online adCenter account (recommended).
OR
* Save data locally: If you are not ready to upload your data, export your current account data to a file that is compatible with Microsoft Office Excel 2003. In the adCenter Desktop ribbon, click Export, and then click Export to adCenter format (.csv).
After you install the new version, import this file into adCenter Desktop.If you have any questions about how to save data locally or how to upload changes to adCenter, visit our adCenter Desktop forum.
Sincerely,
The Microsoft adCenter DesktopBeta Team
There is no word yet on the actual features coming to this new beta.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Seven days ago, we reported on a Bing Search index update that many began noticing. Well, it seems like the WebmasterWorld thread has been updated by a webmaster that watches Bing closely.
This webmaster has noticed a totally new update on Bing and the Bing search results. The webmaster, textex, said:
I am seeing and even different set of results now. We improved nicely in rankings only to drop down to page 2-3. Anyone else seeing this?
Have you noticed a change from last week to this week on Bing? And traffic changes? Any ranking differences?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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 are rampant rates. What is the issue if spiders are crawling your site? Well, no issue unless they crawl your site at a point where it hurts your server and resources. Spiders need to tame themselves and behave nicely to the web servers, which MSNBot has been known, on occasion, not to do.
Most recently, a WebmasterWorld has reports from a couple webmasters that MSNBot is again, not behaving, and crawling sites way too much.
I decided to check our forums here and noticed that of the 23 search bots active on my forum, 19 of them were from Bing, MSNBot and 2 were GoogleBot and the final 2 were Yahoo Slurp. So, of the spiders on my forum, about 82% of them were MSNBot. Others are reporting similar numbers or worse.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.
Five days ago, we alluded to a possible Bing search index update when Microsoft fixed the issues with the Bing Webmaster Tools and blamed the issue on an "update to the search index." But no Webmasters really made a big stink about an update, so I did not write a single post on that alone.
Now I see WebmasterWorld thread with confirmed reports from real webmasters taking notice of an update on Microsoft's search engine, Bing.
Two senior members noticed the update. Billy S. said:
As I hit the enter key, I'm seeing two completely different SERPS on Bing - almost alternating. Anyone else seeing this?
Textex confirmed Billy's findings saying, "I am seeing different results too. Looks like an update."
The last Bing search index update was some time in August 2009, at least the last one we noticed.
Do you notice a change in your rankings and/or traffic from Bing?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
It kind of makes you wonder how important Bing Webmaster Tools is to Microsoft when it takes them over three days to fix a bug that completely makes the tools unusable.
Monday morning, we reported that Bing Webmaster Tools had an unexpected error which disallowed webmasters from accessing any of their verified domains. Many threads and complaints in the Bing forums, amongst others, were created.
It took two days for the Bing forum representative to acknowledge the bug in the forums. Brett Yount posted a thread at the Bing Community over two days after the first report of the bug. He said:
As you are probably aware, the tools are currently down. We are working to correct this ASAP.
Then finally, yesterday at around 10am, three days after the first report of the bug, Microsoft fixed the issue. Here is what Brett said:
I just verified that the tools are running again. Though I can't get into specifics, it looks like the problem was caused by an update to the search index. Needless to say, we are working to make sure more issues such as this do not happen in the near future.
Got that, an update to the search index caused this bug. So there was a search index update that seemed to go unnoticed for the most part. Well, there are some minor threads discussing some issues with the new index, but for the most part, it went unnoticed. That update, caused Webmaster Tools to fail and it took over three days for Microsoft to fix it.
Forum discussion at Bing Community.
Michael Gray noticed that a search for [Perez Hilton] in Microsoft's search engine, Bing, returns a set of pictures and a single search result (perezhilton.com). Here is a screen shot:
The question is why is Bing hiding everything else? They show tons of results for [Paris Hilton] and other 'celebrities,' why not Perez?
Stefan Weitz from the Bing team commented on Michael's blog saying it is by design. He said:
Yes – that is by design. However, if you click on the “see other results containing Perez Hilton” the rest of the algo web results appear. We carefully monitor these “Best Match” results to make sure we aren’t firing this result type too frequently – let us know if you have feedback!
Yes, you can click on the Search for other results containing Perez Hilton to bring up standard web results. But why show only the "best match" when there are plenty of other great matches?
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.
If you try logging into Bing Webmaster Tools, you will be greeted by a message that reads "We are experiencing an issue processing your request at this time." But Bing does tell you that the "Webmaster Center Team has been notified of the error and will work to resolve it. Try again in a few minutes." But trying again in a few minutes won't help, because it has been an issue over the weekend.
The issue seemed to have started yesterday, Sunday, at 5am (EST). Here is a picture:
This comes less than a month after the Bing Webmaster Tools add site bug that wouldn't allow webmaster to add or validate sites on the tool.
Bing has yet to confirm the issue, but I assume as the team (who I believe is based in Seattle -8 GMT) comes into the office today (today is Columbus day) they will get to fixing it.
Forum discussion at Bing Community and DigitalPoint Forums.
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. So I compared a Bing home page image I had from a month ago, to what I see there today, and I see Bing has added two new links. They added the visual search link and also a link to "more."
Here is a picture from September 1st, ignore the arrow, just focus on the links on the left:
Here is a picture from today:
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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 with those icons in the ads. Plus Google tested them in the normal free/organic results.
Matt Cutts told me yesterday that AltaVista also had these, as an extra paid option to their search ads.
So that goes way back in time.
I have not seen examples of Microsoft Bing testing these favicons in the adCenter search ads. Not yet at least, have you?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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 picture of the error I am seeing, as well as many other webmasters:
There are dozens of threads on this issue at the Bing Forums and will likely be dozens more soon. There is also a thread at WebmasterWorld with complaints.
Microsoft is aware of the issue and hope to get it resolved soon. I hope it is resolved by the time this post goes live, which is about 20 hours after the first report of it.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Bing Forums.
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, Ranked by Searches (U.S.)
Provider |
Searches |
M-O-M % |
Share of |
| Total | 10,812,734 | 2.9% | 100.0% |
| Google Search | 6,986,580 | 2.6% | 64.6% |
| Yahoo! Search | 1,726,060 | -4.2% | 16.0% |
| MSN/Windows Live/Bing Search | 1,156,415 | 22.1% | 10.7% |
| AOL Search | 333,231 | 1.8% | 3.1% |
| Ask.com Search | 186,270 | 2.9% | 1.7% |
| My Web Search | 128,432 | 0.5% | 1.2% |
| Comcast Search | 50,328 | -21.6% | 0.5% |
| Yellow Pages Search | 37,923 | 2.7% | 0.4% |
| NexTag Search | 31,830 | 0.4% | 0.3% |
| Local.com Search | 16,314 | 2.9% | 0.2% |
Notice Yahoo dropped 4.2 percent from the previous month, but keep in mind, looking at month-to-month numbers is dangerous in this space.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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. How does this person know that it is MSNBot? Two reason, it is "crawler-acting-like" and also because it is in the same range of IP adresses as MSNBot.
Brett Yount from the Microsoft Bing team confirmed the issue saying:
We've received word from a few other sources concerning this. Our team is reviewing it and will let me know as soon as they have an update. Please be assured that it is not our intention to misrepresent the bot or cause undo problems for webmasters.
In addition to this confirmed report, we have a webmaster in WebmasterWorld complaining that MSNBot fails the best business practices of reverse DNS lookup validating. In November 2006, Microsoft added a method to validate MSNBot is indeed MSNBot by allowing reverse DNS checking of the IP. That began to fail in December 2007, which was confirmed shortly after. Then again, in March 2008 the reverse DNS complaints came back. This is a brand new report after not hearing complaints for a while now. There has not been confirmation of this from Microsoft.
Forum discussion at Bing Forums and WebmasterWorld.
I never understand it when I see trolls come into forums, owned and managed daily by search engine representatives, and spam them. It is clear that these forums are crawling with people who can seriously impact your site's ranking in that search engine - but they are clueless to that fact?
Two recent examples for you:
(1) A Bing Forum thread discusses one member who has been just spamming the forum with link drops to his site. Literally every post of his, is a link to his site. The posts rarely answer questions related to the thread, they are just clogging up the forum.
One active webmaster finally called him out and then warned him:
And a side note, you really think it's a good idea to do this in the forum from a search engine company? I am sure they can add and remove URLs from the index if they really want this...
(2) Some guy came into the Google Webmaster Help forums and asked outright to do link exchanges. I mean, come on! Besides for Google clearly not approving such methods of link building, the forum is filled with people who absolutely hate exchanging links with others.
One of the main DO NOTs of SEO is DO NOT raise a red flag on your site. Coming into an official search engine forum that clearly is monitored by search reps and spamming it with links to your site, doesn't just raise a red flag, but gives them a bulls eye. Now, if you are doing this to a competitor, that is a different evil story.
Forum discussion at Bing Forum and Google Webmaster Help.
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:
As you can see, for the most part, this is structured data and doesn't appear to be data from unstructured parts of the web. In any event, this is a really nice and easy way to narrow the results down. Elisabeth Osmeloski at Search Engine Land has a pretty large write up on the new feature.
The main issue for me is that it requires Silverlight to run, which I don't have on my main machine.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.
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 files with fake referrers. But I am seeing a new report that the log files are showing Microsoft Bing IP addresses in them but without referrer data.
An updated Bing Forum thread has one webmaster explaining the situation:
Unfortunately, the problem is back in another shape!
I have almost the same number of fake referrer hits from bing but in a different shape: no referrer. So, the stats show me the pages visited, no referrer and the IPs (microsoft's) are like: 65.55.110.21, 65.55.110.110, 65.55.107.196
So this does not generate fake keyword referrer data, but it does spike up Bing's referrer traffic for specific pages. That is assuming the webmaster who posted this is correct.
Forum discussion at Bing Forum.
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 four. They include one from yesterday over here, one started on September 3rd over here, one from September 1 over here and one started on August 25th over here.
I ignored the first three, trying to give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt. Hoping it is a webmaster issue or someone spoofing MSNBot. But four threads on the same topic, all within a few weeks of each other does stand out as a possible issue.
I have personally not confirmed the issue, since I have no interest in blocking MSNBot from crawling any parts of my sites - but others don't like Bing as much as I do.
Forum discussion at Bing Forums here, here, here and over here.
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 2: session_destroy() [function.session-destroy]: trying to destroy uninitialized session in/usr/home/mitetsn/public-html/cart/includes/functions/sessions.php on line 146
The session destroy warning seems to be coming from Bing's handling of the site. Ovi in the forums gave us a bit more insight into the technical issue. He said:
session_destroy destroys all of the data associated with the current session. It does not unset any of the global variables associated with the session, or unset the session cookie. To use the session variables again, session_start() has to be called.So it is an problem from the Bing script. I think that the technicians are working on it already.
You can replicate the issue by hovering your mouse over the first listing for this search.
Forum discussion at Bing Forums.
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 right side of the search result listing that pops up when you hover your mouse over a listing. Here is a picture:
The first listing for a search on [rustybrick] at Bing is showing not the most optimal information in that quick preview. Here is a screen shot:
The second listing is the same URL, but with tracking parameters added on and for some reason, the quick preview box has much more optimal text:
Wouldn't it be nice to be able to change the information shown in this box? That is what people are asking in the Bing Forum thread. In fact, Bing representative Brett Yount said it might be coming to a Bing Webmaster Tools section near you. Brett said:
Currently there is no way to change that information. That may change in the next release, but I do not have an ETA.
Now that would be a neat feature.
Forum discussion at Bing Forum.
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 miss the picture shown on a day and they want to go back in history and find it.
Because of that, a while back, Microsoft added a feature to see past images. They added a mouse over feature, where you hover your mouse over the right bottom corner of the image and it lets you scroll back in time to see past images. Here is a picture of that scroll feature:
The issue is, for a certain period of time, that feature went missing for many. In fact, I have been noticing several threads on this topic, including this one at the Bing Forums complaining it is missing. I personally always saw it, but then I noticed how this is working in the US, where I am based, but not elsewhere. One user said:
It's only working for the US version. Not for the other, inluding the Canadian (out-of-beta) version!
Kristin from Microsoft replied that she will "make sure to pass along to the Home page team." So if you cannot see it, hopefully you will be able to see it soon.
Forum discussion at Bing Forums.
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 out the issue as:
We have a known issue that affects a small percentage of people using Bing on their mobile devices, where Bing shows up in the wrong language.
Microsoft both notes how you can help them fix the issue as well as fix the issue on your device. Microsoft said first asked that you help them troubleshoot the issue by going to http://m.bing.com and then type in the query “BINGLANGTEST” and then send them an email (bingmob@microsoft.com) with the date/time you encountered the issue.
Then to fix your issue, just go to [m.bing.com] on your mobile device. This will reset the language back to English.
Forum discussion at Bing Forums.
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 two years.
Brett said:
Thanks to our webmaster community and followers we are happy to share an update to the referrer issue that you may have heard or read about recently. First of all, we’d like to express our sincere apologies that this referrer issue continued past the August 20th date when we explicitly stated that it was fixed. With the support of many webmasters' data, our crawling team was able to pinpoint the root cause and deploy a new fix to stop the referrer string in production. This fix has been verified in all of our production beds.
There are confirmed reports by webmasters that the issue is no longer being seen and that going forward their log files are no longer being polluted with fake referrer data.
I am happy to hear reports that this is fixed, but you can't blame me for being a bit skeptical that this issue might creep up again. I mean, Microsoft fixed this issue at least three times in the past. I certainly hope it is fixed forever.
Forum discussion at Bing Forum.
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 fixed the fake referrer issue that has been plaguing webmasters since 2007 and they have lied again. Well, maybe the word lied is a strong word, maybe Microsoft simply has no idea how to manage a search spider or crawl the web?
The day after Microsoft said they fixed the issue with fake referral data showing up in log files, webmasters said the issue is still there. We have updated threads at Bing Forums and WebmasterWorld, the issue is still going on.
I am sorry for being so upset about this, but this is seriously a bit out of hand. Why? Well, we reported this issue so many times, here is an archive:
Now these are only issues specific to fake referrers clogging up our log files. This doesn't mention the issues with Cashback rewards, or Bing clicking on their own search ads, or ignoring noarchive tag, or the NOODP tag, the geotargeting issues, crawling too fast, adding pound signs to URLs and much more.
So I am a bit upset with Bing Webmaster support.
Forum discussion at Bing Forums and WebmasterWorld.
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 of these issues. If you are still having problems, let me know and I will investigate.
I am just not confident that this is resolved for the long haul. Why? Well, history shows that this has been going on since 2007 and has popping up time and time again since.
Plus, I was hoping for an official explanation on what this issue was, and I have yet to see one.
Forum discussion at Bing Forums.
A few weeks ago, I noticed a blog post from the Cuil blog (Cuil is that new search engine) named So how is Bing doing? I found it very interesting that Cuil did a blog post on how good Bing is. In any event, I decided not to cover it, probably due to a lack of time.
Now that Tedster mentioned it in a WebmasterWorld thread and pulled out four main points from the blog post, I figured I brief on this. The four main points are:
What I found interesting was Tedster's comments on the last point. Tedster said:
If Google is going to lose ground to Bing/Yahoo it will be in this area -- too much giving you what they THINK you mean instead of what you actually typed.
Now, I won't argue with that statement, but it is interesting in that this was most people's number on complaint about Microsoft's products. Everyone joked and still jokes that Bill Gates or Windows knows better with auto complete features. And yes, I see more and more complaints that Google is changing the searchers search query, even though the searcher does not want to search for what Google thinks they should search for.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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 seems like this Cashback program is not only very expensive (giving cash to customers for purchases, up to 50% of those purchases) but it a big headache.
Looking at just one section of the Bing forums, I see 35% of the 20 threads there are about the Cashback program. 7 of 20 of those threads are people complaining about it. Why? Well, sometimes it is just the consumer doing it wrong (like I said, it isn't easy). Other times, it is a merchant bug and sometimes it is a Microsoft issue.
In my case, Microsoft is giving me the second half of my Cashback earnings. But not only is this costing money, in regards to the rewards, they have to deal with bugs and customers who don't even qualify for the rewards. Is all this worth the effort in order to promote Bing? That is up for them to decide, but overall, I think they have really stepped up the communication and awareness about this offering.
Forum discussion at Bing Forums.
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 answer, he said, was yes - they are. He was quick to explain that any of those clicks are not being charged to the advertiser.
Again, no advertiser should be charged for MSNBot clicking on their ads. They are all filtered out and have no chance of being charged to the advertiser.
That is great, right? Well, no. What about the analytical data that skews the numbers. If these bots are clicking on and indexing (I've seen examples of tracking URLs being indexed) then it can terribly skew your analytical data. Click through rates, impressions, conversion metrics and so on, will be all skewed. There were recent studies that showed Bing ads convert higher and drive a higher CTR. But honestly, if you have bots messing with data, and clicking on ads, that CTR value can be greatly skewed.
I asked Microsoft what they are going to do about this? I said, can't you go through your index, match up any adCenter URLs and replace them with maybe the landing page URL? I know that often won't solve the issue, but I want to hear solutions. Microsoft said they will get back to me on this issue.
Forum discussion continued at Bing Forums.
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 webmaster said it some cases Bing is honoring the tag and in other cases Bing is not. He said there is no rhyme or reason to this, "it's inconsistent, and I don't find this to be true across all the websites I've got those meta tags on," he said. Of course, I don't have an example, being the thread is from WebmasterWorld.
But recently, we have seen many complaints about how Microsoft's Bing handles certain webmaster/search protocols. From not honoring NOODP tag, to not effectively using the meta language tag, to other geo problems and crawling too fast, including clicking on search ads, as well as adding pound signs to URLs - Bing has had its recent share of criticism.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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 on his servers.
Based on his metrics, he noticed MSNBot/2.0b was crawling at a rate of 8Mbit per second, all day, every day.
Microsoft did recently announced that this beta crawler, 2.0b (b is for beta), will be ramping activity and it seems like DigitalPoint was hit by this. You might be also, so make sure to check out your bot activity and as the Microsoft post says:
If you have any feedback for us on either the existing or the new MSNBot, or on any other matters pertaining to crawling your website, please post your comments and questions in our crawling/indexing forum. Our Webmaster Center forums moderator will follow-up with you ASAP. Please include in your forum post the identity of the user agent that is the source of your concern so we can help you that much faster. Thank you!
Microsoft's beta bots have a history of causing trouble for webmasters.
Forum discussion DigitalPoint Forums.
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 have excellent rankings or had great rankings and now have poor rankings. This is a clear sign of an update, when you see several different forums discussing this, with so few webmasters actually looking.
The forum threads are at WebmasterWorld, HighRankings Forum & Bing Community thread. Here are excerpts from some of those posts:
Something seems to have changed with the Bing results over the last couple of days here in the UK. I used to struggle to rank on MSN search and when Bing launched and since I have checked and we were still on page 2 or 3 for most terms that we are #1 on Google.
Today for all of my main target terms (except one) we have gone in at #1 on Bing. The results below us look very much like Google.co.uk.
I was no.1 for my main keyword, and had been there for quite some time. Though I went to show a client an example and searched for my term in bing and now i'm not in the top 200?
Was a bit embarrasing to say the least!
Before a week it was in first page while searched "Tour Operator of Bangladesh" or "Tour Operator in Bangladesh" in Bing. But now it disappears from first page even it is not in second page. Last week backlinks showed 400+ now it shows
Have you noticed a major update in Microsoft's Bing search engine?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld, HighRankings Forum & Bing Community.
A Bing Community thread has one webmaster asking why is he getting traffic from http://www.bing.com/spresults.aspx?
Brett Young from Microsoft's Bing Team came in to explain that the traffic seen coming from http://www.bing.com/spresults.aspx is actually from the Internet Explorer (IE) version 6 search pane or search box.
Brett said:
It is used for the IE6 search pane. I'm thinking the traffic is legitimate.
So if you see this traffic, it may be coming from a really old and outdated browser.
Forum discussion at Bing Community.
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 might be set to GB.
Brett Young from the Bing webmaster support team suggested to the webmaster to change the meta tag to:
<meta http-equiv="content-language" content="en-us">
Brett said specifically, with Joomla, "I suggest adding the following meta tag to your home page header and verify that there are no tags pointing to "en-gb"--especially if you are using the Joomla CMS."
It seems like this is a common issue webmasters run into when using Joomla. So I thought I point it out here. I believe Google pays less attention to the meta tag, so it might not be an issue with Google.
Forum discussion at Bing Community.
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 Microsoft, it might be an issue with links and/or the web site's being crawled. But there are now two people reporting it and MSNBot 2 is a beta bot that may have issues, as Microsoft did allude to.
On June 29th, Brett from the Microsoft team did say, "I'm getting our crawler team to look at this. I'll update you as soon as I've heard back." But since then, we have not heard back.
Of course, there are ways to force the bot to the correct URL. I.e. block the # signs in your robots.txt or 301 redirect those URLs to the main URL.
Forum discussion at Bing Help.
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, which now has about 30 replies, even from Brett Young of Microsoft. Cleo said:
If I have one criticism of the Bing, it is that it puts WAY too much emphasis currently on keyword domain names. Like for example, if you made bread and had a website named www.bread.com, it would rank really high with Bing.
However, the actually quality and content or even code of the website may be terrible. It may not even be related to bread, but the people at Bing put way too much emphasis on just the names alone...In the past and present, it has been a major source of abuse/keyword stuffing.
Two things I find interesting in this thread.
(1) The topic of how valuable a domain name is in the eyes of Bing. Clearly this is up for debate and anything you see today, can change tomorrow.
(2) How a site was sent to the spam team for review after discussion in the thread. Yes, you may be able to expedite spam reviews if you complain about specific sites in the Bing community.
Forum discussion at Bing Community.
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 that Bing manages.
That includes features such as:
Here is a screen shot of how the page looks right now:
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
There is almost nothing worse than a malware warning for a webmaster or SEO to see in the search results. You can have top rankings in a search engine, but if your listing is labeled to be harmful and the search engine warns users not to visit the site, it can be devastating.
That is why Google and the other search engines offer malware reviews, either in their webmaster tools section or via a form. Google is known to take action on malware reviews within hours, the other search engines typically take days. But according to one thread, Microsoft's Bing may take several weeks.
A Bing Community thread has one webmaster who claimed he submitted his site for a malware review to all the search engines. Google removed the malware label within the same day, the other search engines took days, but Bing took several weeks, according to this webmaster. The webmaster simply said, "but this whole process did take too long."
I am not sure if this is a common practice with Bing or not. Any webmasters experience this as well? Please let me know.
Forum discussion at Bing Community.
Did you know that both Yahoo and Bing cannot tell the time in Tehran, Iran? A Bing Community thread points out the issue with Bing. Let me share with you searches for [time tehran] from Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask and Wolfram - you will notice that both Bing and Yahoo are off.
Bing shows 3:55pm:
Yahoo also shows 3:55pm:
Google, Ask & Wolfram Alpha all show the correct time, as 4:55pm:
I am not sure why there is a difference between these search engines. Some cite that the difference comes from Iran Standard Time versus Iran Daylight Time, but Iran has one time right now.
Forum discussion at Bing Community.
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 a manual process. You simply need to email bns@microsoft.com and wait to hear back.
What if you don't hear back? Brett suggests emailing again:
There should be confirmation from the review team. If you did not get one, I suggest emailing them again.
Yahoo News and Google News are tremendous traffic drivers, but Bing is gaining market share, according to some. So it cannot hurt to be listed.
Forum discussion at Bing Community.
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 the loose since the middle of May. There are threads at WebmasterWorld and Bing Community with complaints about this bot. The bot reportedly indexes and crawls incredibly quickly, with no remorse on the web server. This can cause servers to see spikes of CPU usage and slow down the normal visitors from using the site. In addition, the spider does not obey the crawl delay command.
A Bing representative said the fix was just released this morning and the bot should no longer cause issues for webmasters. Brent Young of the Bing team said:
I just received word that they fixed the bug that was causing this. If you are still experiencing issues, please email me at lswmc@microsoft.com
I hope so.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Bing Community.
It is amazing how many blogs are buzzing about Bing adding Twitter results for some "prominent and prolific Twitterers." It works by searching for name tweet/twitter or the @username.
So for example, @rustybrick returns my "latest" Tweet.
The thing is, I took this screen shot five minutes after making a new Tweet. Here is that new tweet:
So we know that Bing must pull from the public Twitter API, not in real time, but on set intervals. A lot of people are touting this Bing/Twitter search answer as "real time." If it was literally real time, the Bing search results that contain tweets would have the potential to fail too often. Twitter is known for their downtime and to pull Tweets in real time from the API can fail also. So clearly, Bing is storing these Tweets in a local data source and serving them up in close to real time, but not exactly real time.
FYI, it is now 10 minutes after tweeting and the tweet does not show up in Bing.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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 you don't like them. Here is the break down of the results:
Question: Do You Like The Bing Commercials?
:: Yes said 54 respondents or 59%
:: No said 24 respondents or 26%
:: Indifferent said 9 respondents or 10%
:: Other answer... said 4 respondents or 4%
Other answers include:
Forum discussion continued at DigitalPoint Forums.
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 were deemed low quality.
Here is a copy of the email, as reported by the advertiser:
I have been looking over your account and can inform you that the resultant drop in traffic has been due to the websites that you advertise being reviewed by our QBR (Quality Based Ranking) team who have deemed them to be of a low quality. The QBR team determines quality and relevance of sites by assessing:
The advertiser said that the same ads and content passed the AdWords quality score, with no problem, so why not Microsoft's adCenter quality requirements?
I don't believe I have ever heard of the Quality Based Ranking team before, I know adCenter launched the quality based ranking algorithm in April of 2007, but I never heard of a human team that monitors it. It makes sense that there are humans, so I am not surprised by this, but I thought it would be nice to document such an email correspondence.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
A Catalyst Group study showed that searchers mostly liked Bing's search interface and results over Google, but would not leave Google because they were familiar with it. TechCrunch covered this study first, where the key findings included:
Here is the chart people are showing:
Here is the full PDF of the study:
Catalyst Group Bing V. Google Usability Study -
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.
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 share you see coming from Bing is legit and search marketers are taking notice.
I track a lot of web sites and in some cases, not all, Bing has overtaken Yahoo as the number two search engine sending traffic to those sites. Google still dominates, but the number two search engine for some sites I track is Bing, not Yahoo anymore.
In a 15 day period, Bing sent this site over 1,000 more visitors then Yahoo did. Of course, this is just one site and who knows, maybe Yahoo doesn't like this site too much. But a lot of webmasters and search marketers are noticing that Bing's share is exceeding Yahoo. Again, not in all cases, but in some. So what does this mean?
If you have not done so already, go to your analytics package and see what search engine is driving you traffic. Note, in Google Analytics, the Bing traffic doesn't really show until June 9th, so maybe adjust your date range to reflect that. Then see the search traffic reports and see where your visitors are coming. Then reallocate your budgets accordingly, based on traffic, conversions and ROI.
Don't get me wrong, I love Yahoo but you have to do what is best for the bottom line.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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 up a YouTube channel with many of their commercials at youtube.com/user/bing so i'll post a few here and please let me know if you like them in our quick poll below.
Here is the poll, please take it:
Do You Like The Bing Commercials?(survey)
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.
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 to the NY Times, these defendants allegedly:
Microsoft said it found a pattern of click fraud on its search pages, where lists ranked by relevance and popularity appear alongside a handful of paid results. Advertisers bid on what they will pay to appear in the paid-search results for certain keywords. The more an advertiser pays, the higher they are in that list, and advertisers usually pay for each click on their ad.
Why is Microsoft doing this? Maybe to send a warning to those who are involved in click fraud to stop doing it or else. Or maybe Microsoft wants more buzz about their search ad network, adCenter?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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 the tools remain the same.
For example, people are first noticing that Bing has a Local Business Center. Honestly, the way to get there is to go to [https:] and it will redirect you to [https:]. If you had a Live Search Maps listing, you have a Bing listing.
Same with Bing's webmaster tools, go to [webmaster.live.com] and you will be redirected to [www.bing.com]. The features remain the same, for the most part, outside of a new logo at the top left.
Sorry for the little rant about Bing being so new and exciting. It is exciting and new, but much of the press around Bing is calling old features new, when they are not new (i.e. Live411 to Bing411).
There are several reports at Google Custom Search Help and Google Web Search Help with searchers who use Internet Explorer version 6 on their PC and are claiming that Bing has hijacked the search feature in the toolbar.
Several users are claiming that since Bing was launched, even though Google was their default search provider in IE, Bing has taken control. Even worse, when they try to change it back from Bing to Google, it does not work.
Here is one post:
Had Google set as my default browser. woke up this morning to discover that BING had hijacked this feature. cant change it via: search/customize on the IE tool bar. all I get is a windows live page saying Ooops.
There is no official explanation from either Microsoft or Google, as of yet. Matt Cutts of Google did tweet about the issue. A Microsoft individual did tweet back saying the "folks have escalated your concerns."
Forum discussion at Google Custom Search Help and Google Web Search Help.
Update: We have a statement from Microsoft on this issue:
We're aware of the issue with IE6 and Bing and are investigating a solution. This issue is not impacting IE7 or IE8 users. We respect user choice on search providers in IE and all browsers, and designed IE to enable that choice. We will provide an update soon on this issue, and we apologize for any inconvenience it has caused. In the meantime, we encourage customers to upgrade to IE8 here. Alternatively, Firefox users can install the add-in for Bing here.
Update: Microsoft emailed me again at 2:45am on June 3, 2009 to inform me the issue is now resolved with IE6. The issue was server side, so the fix was able to be pushed out remotely to all infected browsers.
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 for your search listing. Google, Yahoo and MSN Search supported the tag. The tag was introduced back in 2006 after webmasters became upset that the search engines were using some of those titles.
In any event, the WebmasterWorld thread claims Bing is now using titles and descriptions from DMOZ (ODP) even though the NOODP tag is on the page. I don't have any test cases I can remember off the top of my head to validate this, so I am leaving this open.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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 to be getting some pretty good press about the early launch.
The demo last week wasn't as positive as what I see now from the community. I guess people like what they are seeing.
Try it yourself now at Bing.com. Some SEOs are joking that BING stands for, ""But It's Not Google." It is not Google, that is true. The forum discussion is pretty positive, so I thought I ask you in a simple poll, do you like it?
Do You Like Bing's Search Results?(polls)
Forum discussion:
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 later.
Danny Sullivan has a nice write up on what we can expect from Microsoft. There are questions about when it is launching, what brand will it go under and how it will compete with Google. Microsoft is struggling in the area of both branding the engine and making it as good as Google. So we will see how the demo works out and if it can make a dent in Google.
Time will tell. I was wrong in 2004 when I said Microsoft will beat Google even if they aren't more relevant. I actually am happy that they did not and I am happy to admit I was wrong. I am now wiser to say, let's wait and see with what happens here.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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 spoke with the team. They said they are working on a fix for this, but the feature causing the problem is turned off currently, so you shouldn't be seeing any fake referrals from us.
Exactly what type of "feature" is causing this to be a problem is not clear. In the past, we know Microsoft had a bot that tested for detecting cloaking. But this time, the Microsoft representative did not mention cloaking. Is this some new type of feature or just issues with the old cloaking detection algorithm?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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 you are outside of the US, you are out of luck.
A WebmasterWorld thread has a UK business owner who was upset he was unable to verify his listing. MSNDude, an official Microsoft representative has finally come in to respond. His response:
Unfortunately, we currently do not support local listings outside of the US. However, I believe the local listings team is working to expand this in the near future.
You hear that? It might be here in the "near future." Who knows how long that really means, but "near future" to me, would mean within the year.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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. ContentAds is Microsoft's competing Google AdSense product.
An open beta means that virtually anyone should be able to sign up for the product and test it against Google AdSense. It is also rumored that Microsoft will set up a companion blog for the ContentAds (PubCenter) today, April 22nd.
In March 2008, Microsoft began accepting beta users via a sign up form. Since then, it has remained fairly quiet except for some comparisons made by beta users between ContentAds & AdSense. ContentAds began being tested in June 2007 by a few publishers and some really early tests in October 2006. The earliest rumors of this product came in December 2005 and then again in February 2006.
Hopefully the big beta launch is today.
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.
Update: Microsoft confirms this and adds more details.
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 then again in July 2008 without explanation.
We are now seeing them again, starting last month. A WebmasterWorld thread said it is coming from search.live more than MSN bots.
Microsoft's Jason chimed in the other day suggesting Betsy Aoki at Microsoft via this form. But soon after, Brett Yount from Live Search's Webmaster Center came in as MSNDude and said:
I would like to apologize for the inconvenience this is causing. We are working to correct this issue ASAP.
Hopefully it will get resolved soon and forever.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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 fact, the domain name is set to expire in November of this year.
The irony of this is that when Ask dropped Jeeves, I joked that Dewey was the new Jeeves character in the search field. Then, in October 2008, we noticed that Jeeves became a porn star when he let his domain expire and an adult site took it over. Now, the comical part is that the woman who played the character of Ms. Dewey has history in the adult film business.
I find that pretty funny - not sure if you will.
In any event, Ms. Dewey, the beloved and witty search character Microsoft employed, is now no longer active. No word from Microsoft on this matter yet.
Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.
Bill at WebmasterWorld found a new MSN Japan search engine named Zenbu Kensaku at [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 English keyword searches in addition to the Japanese. Enter a keyword and give it a try.
The tabs at the top offer a number of ways to break down the SERPs. The default is to show all of the different categories together on one page "zenbu". Then we have web, Q&A, images, movies, news, maps, shopping, and sponsors.
I've run through several searches, and it looks like a useful way to break down the SERPs. Could this be part of the MS Kumo beta?
Common to Asian based search engines, the interface is very graphical. I decided to try searching for the word privacy in Japanese and I took a screen capture of the very interesting search results layout. You can see a screen capture of it at my Flickr account.
This is clearly powered by Live Search, but the big question is, might this be a preview of Kumo in Japan? I doubt it is what we would see in the US when Kumo launches.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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 adCenter Analytics beta program." Current users can continue to use the service until December 31, 2009 but are urged to export their data to one of the many analytics packages available and cease using Microsoft adCenter Analytics as soon as possible.
Microsoft added:
Our team would like to sincerely thank you for your participation and your invaluable contributions to the program. Our objectives at the outset were to serve the needs of small and midsize self-service customers, as well as evolve the Microsoft strategy to address the Web analytics space.
The insights you’ve contributed through your feedback and your use of the tool have served an invaluable purpose in shaping Microsoft’s future in this space. You’ve helped us work towards making an informed decision about building a general Web analytics solution, and despite the end of life plan, the beta was very much a success.
It enabled us to confidently determine that we can be of most value to advertisers and publishers by offering a tailored solution that meets more specialized needs.
Then they listed a number of companies offering analytics, including Google.
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.
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. Plus they need to differentiate. Until now, and even now, they are playing catch up with search technology, trying to get up to speed with even Yahoo. Google, well - they are pretty far ahead.
Microsoft's answer? Code name, Kumo. I am not going to show screen shots, that has been done all over the web already. I would suggest reading Danny Sullivan's break down of screens and features.
I want to share the reaction from the webmaster from WebmasterWorld. Here are select quotes from the thread:
Good news but you cannot "catch up". A new service won't create more searches so they'll have to cut into Yahoo and Google to borrow some of theirs.
You know, it's the Yin and Yang and Yahoo effect.
Microsoft entered and took over the browser war in about 5 years.
In search, they have not gained any ground in 5 years. Time to go back to making your OS better. Like maybe having an upgrade path from XP to your latest OS, considering XP still has a 70% market share... But hey, we are talking Microsoft here... They will do what they want regardless of common sense.
If they're smart and they can work out the licensing, the next version of Windows will ship with IE, FF, Chrome and Safari all set to go and all defaulting to their search engine.
Oh yeah, and they'll quit changing the name of their search engine every year.
Oh yeah, and they'll quit choosing stupid names for a search engine, like Live or Kumo.
Sounds like lipstick on a pig to me. Google's safe for another decade or two.
What I like about this new search they are testing is their focus on the usefulness of the search engine in terms of accomplishing tasks. Microsoft appears to be looking closer at user intent.
Some of this comments are classic! I was wrong, I thought by now Microsoft would be totally competing with Google. I admit it, I was wrong.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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 campaigns and at the top right of the report, click on "change." Here is a screen capture:
Then, it will open up to let you enter in a custom date range:
Discovery said, "Well it's one of those "features" you would expect to have because Google has had it for so long now. However, Adcenter just got this into their system."
I am sure advertisers will appreciate this small, but important addition.
Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.
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, in Danny's experience doing conferences, Microsoft has yet to send a key player such as Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer run the keynote conversation. They simply don't think it's worth it. (On the other hand, other conferences are fair game for these guys.)
Another reason for Microsoft's failure is that they seem to emphasize that they care about search, but they certainly aren't practicing what they appear to preach. Danny points out the following taglines: Google's tagline is "Search, Ads & Apps" and Microsoft's is "Software + Services." Where's search, Microsoft?
A third reason Danny cites is that Microsoft still doesn't get search. At least not the way we see it. He says that Microsoft perceives search as software, and that's not it. Search updates are rolled out on Google on no schedule, but with Microsoft's (cough) bureaucracy, it seems that changes must be done on some sort of schedule.
Danny goes into a lot more detail, explaining that there are executive inconsistencies, lousy advertising, requiring integration of services, and lame distribution deals that are not swaying people away from Google.
All in all, Microsoft in the search market is destined to go down. Or maybe the key players in Microsoft should take a good read at Danny's honest and forthright opinion so that they can make some real changes that can actually improve the perception of Microsoft in the eyes of searchers.
Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.
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 data centers the serps and they are rotating in and out. One data center is presenting much better serps the other may be a way microsoft is working on the bot and is throwing the spammy one.
Others are not happy with the update, complaining that there is too much search spam at the top.
The last possibly update was in early October. Some suspect this update might have something to do with the new MSNBot Microsoft just started testing.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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. Now, let me get to how you can save 25% on your holiday gifts, it is really easy and legit.
As many of you know, Microsoft is desperate to gain market share for Live.com. How desperate? Extremely. Microsoft is so desperate that they are willing to pay for 25% of whatever you buy through Live Search, if you do it through their cashback program. Microsoft Cashback which launched in May of this year is still offering huge discounts. Let me take you through how you can buy almost anything and get 25% off.
Yesterday, I purchased a Delta faucet, specifically, Victorian Centerset Bath Faucet, for one of my bathrooms. My wife has been eyeing it for a while and I felt, I would be a good husband and buy it for her. The sticker price is $282.65 but after you go to normal stores, it runs just about $200. I figured, why not try using Microsoft's Cashback to get an extra 25% off of the $200.
Step 1: Search for wii on Live.com
Step 2: Find an eBay ad (or any ad) that has a cashback logo and click on it:
Step 3: Make sure towards the top of the eBay page it has the cashback logo. That logo looks like this:
Step 4: Now search for what you are looking for, in my case, 2555RB-216RB, which is the model number of the faucet I want to get my wife. If you find it, then your in luck, now its time for...
Step 5: Make sure you have a PayPal account, most of you do already, but if you don't, you need one. You can do this in a new window.
Step 6: Make sure you have a Cashback account, takes not too long to sign up for one. You can do this in a new window.
Step 7: Buy it now with your PayPal account. Make sure you see that cashback logo throughout the process.
Step 8: The confirmation receipt page, should have a blue "Get cashback" button. Make sure to click on it.
Step 9: A new window should open up and it might ask you to login to your cashback. Do that and you should be set. Don't worry if you don't see the cashback refund immediately. It should show up in a day or two. I received an email with my reward 10 minutes after.
The email looked like this:
Hello, Barry!
Thanks for searching, shopping and saving with Microsoft Live Search cashback - The Search That Pays You Back!
From your recent purchases, you have earned cashback savings!
To view the details for this purchase or your other Live Search cashback transactions, sign into your Live Search cashback account. The transaction will be listed as pending for 60 day(s). Your cashback savings will be paid to the PayPal account that you used to make the purchase after a 60 day(s) pending period.
You received $48.00 from your eBay purchase on 11/25/2008:
For more information about Live Search cashback, see our FAQ page or Contact Us.
Thanks,
The Live Search cashback team
Soon later, you should see it show up in your CashBack account. I know several people who use this often and it is really a great way to save some of your hard earned money in these tough times.
Now, I know people who take advantage of this platform. I won't discuss those details, but most of you can figure out how to make some money off this Cashback system. If not, maybe I'll tell you via Twitter only, not via email, but you need to follow me on Twitter and @rustybrick me and Ill reply that way, if I see it.
Hope this helps a few people and if it helps Microsoft, great!
Forum discussion at Search Engine Roundtable Forums.
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 Microsoft employees with an internal site.
Whether or not it's true is only speculation at this point. However, sentiment is pretty heavily expressed against Microsoft taking this approach.
Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.
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 representative did drop a new detail that they are discounting support for US advertisers on Sundays. If you visit the phone support page, you will notice the new hours are 06:00 - 18:00 PST Monday - Saturday.
So while they are updating their logo and adding a bunch of features, if you have a problem on Sunday - you are out of luck. Some support documents for US advertisers still say seven day support, but they should be updating all the documents soon to say Monday through Saturday email and phone support.
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.
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:
Initial feedback is that this is good stuff, but many wonder when adCenter will catch up to AdWords.
Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.
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:
Initial feedback is that this is good stuff, but many wonder when adCenter will catch up to AdWords.
Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.
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 picture:
The logo seems relatively new. WebmasterWorld member rehabguy called the logo, "a tornado or a drain," depending on which you find "more relevant" to the brand.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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 good to integrate search on Facebook with search on Live.com to prevent opening a second tab/browser to perform searches. However, as one forum member points out, this looks like an attempt for Microsoft do dominate the search realm.
Other implications of this search partnership will relate to the personal information Facebook has about you and how Microsoft should probably leverage that with this search integration. I'd admit -- if I'm searching on the Web using Facebook, I'd definitely want more personalized results than generic SERPs for any random query.
Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld and High Rankings Forums.
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:
If you want a sneak peak at these features, you can apply to the adCenter beta program over here.
Forum discussion at adCenter Community but there was a thread at Search Engine Watch Forums that was removed.
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 Cash Back are minimal, but the idea behind the new creation is that you get points for every search. Those accumulate and then you can win prizes.
You're limited to IE6 or higher to participate, so Firefox users are not eligible. That's because SearchPerks has a built in toolbar.
It's questionable, though, if this is a good business plan for Microsoft. To me, it sounds like something that can be easily exploited. One forum member says the following to echo that sentiment:
If people are doing pointless searches and meanwhile clicking on ads to max out their "tickets", I can't see it being a good deal for anyone in the long run.
Many people agree and think that Microsoft should stop while they're ahead. But until then, happy searching!
Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.
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 have been added to the beta, that's a good place to go.
Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.
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 to confirm the update. Old time member, Marcia, said:
A ten place drop from first to second page for the first site I checked isn't looking too appealing right now.
It looks like sites with a LOT of backlinks have risen to the top, I'm seeing some that have been ranking at Google for similar search terms, and have checked their link profiles in the past.
It'll take more looking, but I'd say it's definitely an update.
I checked my analytics and I see a major change for many keywords overnight from the Live Search referrals data. So I also can confirm seeing changes with Live Search.
The last major Live Search update we reported on was in July 2008.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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 community forums.
I won't go through all the features of the tool, Vanessa Fox has done that at Search Engine Land, but I will discuss the lack of discussion around this launch.
There has been sufficient buzz about this tool in the past. We heard promises that it was coming in August 2007. Then in September 2007, Live Search began accepting beta testers to the program. In November 2007, Microsoft announced that it would be launched shortly. A few days later, I showed off screen captures of the tool and interface, and was a bit unimpressed, to say the least. Then Microsoft launched a beta version. I then discussed the Live Search rank bars found in their Webmaster Tools.
In any event, now the tool is out of beta, they added a bunch of features and no one cares. All we have is a single post at WebmasterWorld two days later, saying, that Microsoft announced it. But that is it. No feedback, no complaints, no suggestions, nothing. Someone did Sphinn the Search Engine Land post, but it has zero comments and only five sphinns. Hopefully people will have time to review it over the weekend and complain about it next week. :)
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld & Sphinn.
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 Microsoft is headed:
Their goal: to emphasize other features of search. Right now, there's an emphasis on Botswana, but forum members suppose that Microsoft will switch up the images a bit and offer different searches in the future, which one calls an "interesting strategy." (Agreed.) At the same time, this may have people wanting to "capitalize on those keywords" to get maximum search traffic. That, too, would be an interesting strategy.
Additional discussion can be read at Techmeme and forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.
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 release elaborates more on the company reorganization and explains that a number of former Microsoft executives will be moving to other opportunities outside the company while others are seeing promotions within the company. One of the people moving on is Kevin Johnson, who we covered in a keynote conversation only last month.
What does this mean for search? Nobody is sure yet. We'll just have to wait, hold on, and be hopeful.
Techmeme has a lot of blog discussion, and forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.
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. For example, he saw a search for "computers" and this is a term he doesn't even rank for.
Other forum members report similar suspicious activity. As robzilla says, all hits have a referring URL that includes the variable "form=QBHP". After analyzing his logs, he says that the user agent is consistent across the board: "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.2; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)".
Is this another spam or quality check? We've yet to find out.
Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.
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 says:
We don't send chain letters, lame jokes, or other unrelated stuff.
And then the sign me up for emails message reads, "Sign me up for the way cool and at most monthly newsletter for webmasters."
Personally, I think it shows humor and makes it feel more inviting. I agree with WebmasterWorld admin, Rogerd, who said:
They're just trying to soften up the old Evil Empire image with a little humor... It's a new fun, playful Microsoft. Think of Steve Ballmer as your best bud... :)
But I guess not everyone will feel that way.
For a look at what Live Search Webmaster Tools has to offer, see our first screen shots.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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 your adCenter search traffic differently from your adCenter content network traffic. How do you do it? Well, in Google, it is easy. You just add {ifsearch:} and {ifcontent:} parameters to the URLs and it is done. With adCenter, it may not be that easy.
The official Microsoft representative, adCenterRep, said this cannot be done with Microsoft. Instead, you need to set up two different adGroups for each campaign. Let me quote you:
At this time, the only way to keep the data seperated is by having two adGroups. Although I have submitted your feedback and will have the developmental team review the idea.
May I suggest that you use the 'Give us Feedback' link from within your account requesting this as well?
So if you want this feature, login to adCenter and suggest it by clicking on "Give us Feedback."
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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 a couple advertisers are beginning to report a major milestone for Microsoft adCenter. Two very well respected and seasoned PPC specialists have announced that Microsoft adCenter has accounted for more spend then Yahoo.
Is this the beginning of Yahoo falling behind Microsoft in search ads? Google still secures a strong lead in the area, but Yahoo has been experiencing a slow death.
A WebmasterWorld thread has a post from a senior member, Beren, who has been at WebmasterWorld since 2003. Beren explained why Microsoft is beating Yahoo:
June 2008 was the first month when our MSN AdCenter spending exceeded our YSM spending. A milestone has been passed as YSM becomes our number 3. And it wasn't because MSN spending rose; it was because YSM spending sank. I almost feel sorry for this company when I look at how they have fallen. (But I'm not really sorry because I don't like spending money and because they brought it on themselves.) A few years ago, our AdWords and YSM spending were about equal. In June AdWords spending was 35 times YSM spending. Our YSM spending went from six digits per month back in 2005 to four digits in June 2008.
Is the lower spending because we are getting fewer clicks, bidding on different keywords? No. It is almost all due to the collapse in price at YSM. The competitors in this industry realized the poor quality of traffic out of YSM and drove the bids down, down, down.
Yes, that is a true shame.
A Search Engine Watch Forums thread has a post from moderator Discovery, saying the same thing:
For the past 3 years or so Adcenter has provided a nice but small supplement to our daily conversion count. Decent conversion costs and good quality customers. The only issue we had was that the volume of traffic and conversions were low. No matter what we tried, traffic didn't budge and Adcenter sat as a distant 3rd to Google and Yahoo.
Last month we saw an uptick in traffic as well as conversions at Adcenter. This trend continued for the last two weeks of June. Our latest numbers show that Adcenter has outpaced Yahoo in both conversions and CPL over the last 30 days.
Wow, the tide is turning and it seems like Microsoft is well on their way to beating Yahoo at the search ad business. But is it because Microsoft is doing something right or because Yahoo is doing something wrong?
Forum discussion at and Search Engine Watch Forums.
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 noticed a large SERPs change in MSN today? For one of my main keywords I went from #1 to #41, except now it's a completely different page ranking for that term. As well most of the other competitors that were on the front page completely disappeared as well.
YES! And we went from number 60 to number 2! I'm lovin' it! Let's hope it stays like this because these are finally decent results! :)
The last time we reported on a Live Search update was back in April 2008, which we believed to be a rollback of the Live Search March update.
This update has major changes as well. Most are happy, at the moment, but it does not mean that the results are more relevant. We will keep watching and let you know about any significant changes.
Yesterday, we reported about a recent Yahoo Search update and the Google July fluctuations continue onwards.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Search with Microsoft Live, get cash back. That's the new mantra behind Microsoft's Live Search Cash Back program, which has its own dedicated homepage and works like this: you search for a product using Live, buy the product through the search engine, and then save. The site explains "Every time you make a qualifying purchase, we'll send you an email to confirm your Live Search cashback savings. When your cashback account reaches a balance of at least $5, you can claim your cold, hard cash."
Here's a screenshot of the interface:
It's an interesting system, though it does show the great lengths Microsoft is taking to get a share of the search pie. Will it work? I think it could, as long as people are using the search engine regularly for this purpose and if they're finding what they're searching for.
Forum discussion continues at Search Engine Watch Forums and additional blogosphere discussion is at Techmeme.
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 a "big city newspaper" than Live Search News, but notes that there's some localized news on Live Search's end. (I'm still in Puerto Rico so I see no local news at all and I may be at a disadvantage with my reporting, though forum members do believe that it's being rolled out in different geographic locations at different times.)
The other big observation is that Microsoft is feeding news releases whereas Google is offering secondary and tertiary news sources where applicable. That said, many forum members believe that Microsoft has much work to do to make it a comparable service to Google News.
Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.
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 rolling out a new update. We have two forum posts that suggest this behavior:
"Anyone else see the update rolled back?"
No I see a shake up going on right now
I think I have never seen such an awful SERPS in my life. It's a total disaster now. Lot of widget-in-domain.com, shopzillas, and spammy junk.
It looks like link quantity rules, and link quality doesn't matter. I can see websites that have nothing but 1,000s of links from article directories and spammy blogs ranking 1st to 3rd in a quite competitive niches.
The discussion continues about how much webmasters and SEOs dislike the current state of Live Search.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
The search world was in for a surprise this morning when it was formally announced the Jim Lanzone will replace Steve Berkowitz as Senior Vice President of Microsoft Online Services which includes the Live.com search engine. Berkowitz had previously announced that he would be stepping down in August of 2008, but last week he indicated he would be leaving earlier for personal reasons and would announce a successor. Berkowitz quickly announced Jim Lanzone as his formal successor early this morning. Many have speculated recently that Lanzone and Berkowitz had been co-horting for sometime to eventually bring Lanzone over to Microsoft. Both men had previously held the position as CEO of Ask and it was not hard for both of their names to be mentioned in the same sentence over the last few years. Berkowitz had been known to criticize Google in the past with comments that Google was the model T of search and needed to evolve. It's expected Jim Lanzone will follow suit with similar Google colloquialisms once he takes Berkowitz's place in the next few weeks.
Lanzone who recently left Ask.com had been replaced by Jim Safka in January 2008. Ask embarked on a new course in March that included the layoff of 40 employees and a refocusing of its' search engine towards 30-something women, a decision many were not happy about. Lanzone will have some big shoes to fill replacing Berkowitz at such an important time in Microsofts steady advance on Yahoo and its' grab on the search business it feels it deserves.
Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld, Digitalpoint Forums, and Cre8asite Forums.
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 Search representative at WebmasterWorld came into the forum thread and completely violated them. He asked for specifics and we all know that WebmasterWorld does not allow specifics. He asked:
I am looking into this and could use some sample queries where you are seeing problems. I have tried the "cheap hotels" example, but I could use some more specific examples to test with.
Please post the term and the query link and we will take a look.
Soon after, the moderator of the forum told members not to post specifics, but it was too late. Some of the example queries include:
The moderator asks you to Sticky Mail MSNDude instead, so here is a quick link to email MSNDude via WebmasterWorld. Send him good examples so he can have the engineers look into improving the index.
As you can tell, I like picking on Microsoft.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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:
So you can basically max out your keyword list on a per account level to 100,000 keywords. I suspect a phone call to Microsoft, if needed, can help increase that limit, but I am not 100% sure about that.
adCenterRep adds he is "I am happy to assist" those with questions at a WebmasterWorld thread.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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 an Internet Explorer browser plugin that helps you manage your search ads. I assume it speeds up the process as well as gives you more data as you edit them.
Here is the exact post from WebmasterWorld:
I just got an invite to try the beta version of the software called AdCenter Ace.
If you have firefox set as your default browser you may have trouble installing this program. I had to make IE my default browser to install Adcenter Ace :)
Hopefully it will become a bit easier to use AdCenter.
I don't have official confirmation from Microsoft on this new beta nor do I have screen captures at this moment.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.