Sorry this site requires JavaScript to be enabled in your browser. See the following guide on How to enable JavaScript in Internet Explorer, Netscape, Firefox and Safari. Alternatively you may be blocking JavaScript with an advert-related or developer plugin. Please check your browser plugins.

Sphinn Home » Vertical Search
MSN’s search scam
Vertical Search News Source: http://www.somebits.com
Story Found By: AndrewGirdwood 1765 Days ago
Category: Vertical Search
When I was at Google I was nervous when Microsoft started making a serious go at the search and ads business. Microsoft has a lot of smart engineers and resources and a powerful monopoly that they have a history of illegally exploiting. As it turns out MSN search hasn’t been much competition to Google, although the story isn’t over yet. Those Facebook and Digg deals do matter. But it’s just shameful that the best MS can do for market share is to pay robots to play cartoon chicken games.
 Comments1 Comments  

Comments

Avatar Administrator
from dannysullivan 1764 Days ago #
Votes: 0

http://searchengineland.com/070713-140321.php covers Microsoft and Compete both saying the traffic isn’t from bots. http://searchengineland.com/070716-232238.php covers comScore also seeing the rise. Now we’ve had at least one search engineer, Matt Cutts, still feel that all three of these companies are mistaken and that the automated queries are getting through: "@danny, speaking as someone who has seen a lot of creative ways for bots to send traffic to a search engine, I know that it’s a hard problem to tackle well. But the Comscore numbers estimate that MSFT went from 757M queries to 1.1B queries, an increase of 343M queries. That’s nearly a 50% increase in queries in 30 days, which seems pretty artificial. Do I think that Compete/Live successfully detected all bot traffic with 100% accuracy? Color me skeptical. :)" That’s from here: http://searchengineland.com/070713-140321.php#comment-3368 First, I’d agree the figures probably aren’t 100 percent accurate. But say 50%? Even then, it’s an impressive gain for Microsoft. In addition, if bot traffic is getting through, then the same figures are suspect for Google itself. Google has had month after month of climbing -- perhaps that’s from bot traffic as people continue to monitor and scrape the service? So I guess we can add a former Google engineer, Nelson Minar, to the doubtful crowd: "But it’s just shameful that the best MS can do for market share is to pay robots to play cartoon chicken games." That’s pretty damning. Skipping past the bot issue, how about the idea of getting search traffic by making people play games. Shameful? Then don’t go here: http://www.searchforbourne.com/ "The Search and Translation tools powered by Google put the most powerful web resources at your fingertips. If a message points you to keywords, try using them to search the web in the Search window on your Agent Hub. If you need to find an image, click "Images" and enter your search terms into the Search window. A new browser window will be launched with the results. When dealing with foreign agents, you may find that Google Translate will come in handy." Just a little game Google’s running right now, you know, to get people to do searches on Google. But it’s just shameful that the best MS can do for market share is to pay robots to play cartoon chicken games.

Upcoming Conferences

Search Marketing ExpoSearch Engine Land produces SMX, the Search Marketing Expo conference series. SMX events deliver the most comprehensive educational and networking experiences - whether you're just starting in search marketing or you're a seasoned expert.


SMX Web Site » | SMX Difference » | SMX News »

Join us at an upcoming SMX event:

Latest News From Marketing Land
Upcoming Webcasts

Search Marketing Now Learn more about search marketing with our free online webcasts and webinars from our sister site, Search Marketing Now. Upcoming online events include:


Latest News From Search Engine Land