Msn

http://beta.search.msn.com/results.asp?q=

[caine]

anyone know what this is about, i only noticed it today. MSN is still not redering properly in Opera.

[agerhart]

I have been seeing consistent referrals coming from beta.msn for a week or two on a new site that was submitted through INK.

I have no idea what it is.

[msgraph]

I've encountered it a few times in my IE browser. Like when you type a domain name in the location bar only to get some usual IE DNS error.

I saw it yesterday but today it shoots back to the auto.search.msn.com/results.asp?

That is the only time I've seen it but maybe they toss it up when people type keywords in the location bar too.

Maybe they are doing the same thing on MSN too from time to time.

[Brad]

Same here. I'm getting those beta MSN hits for about the last 5 days. I have no idea what it is about.

[rcjordan]

beta.search.msn comes and goes. Oct 2000 [webmasterworld.com]

[seo]

MSN uses the domain beta.search.msn.com during Betas of new versions of the MSN Search service.

Getting referrals from beta.search.msn.com means that the person doing a search on MSN got randomly selected to use the Beta site during the Beta period. When they selected a link, the referrer to your site was MSN Search's beta URL.

[kleang]

It's used for testing overture PPC listing.

[agerhart]

kleang,

Welcome to WebmasterWorld.

>>>>It's used for testing overture PPC listing.

Can you let us know where you got this information? I don't really agree with you as we are seeing referrals for a site that has no Overture listings for the particular keywords that are being referred from the Beta Search.

[kleang]

Hi agerhart,

MSN will show only selected keyword. You can test by searching travel related word such as "thailand hotels". The SPONSORED SITES come from overture.

[rcjordan]

Beta.search.msn has had a habit of toggling SERPs, so just to confirm kleang's example, the current beta.msn shows the 3 top overture bidders for 'thailand hotels' as Sponsored Sites.