Not 100% sure where the listings are coming from, because looksmart titles and descriptions are still showing for some sites.
Wonder if it will stick?
Reading:
[webmasterworld.com...]
and
[webmasterworld.com...]
I'm thinking it won't
The threads you are pointing to our very old too - what are you seeing? - Any chance of a screen capture?
I'm seeing a search from the msn.co.uk home page going to:
beta.uk.search.msn.com
but on another machine the search is going to the normal:
uk.search.msn.com
so maybe that's why you can't see it.
The old posts are showing that MSN often uses this beta search, although I have never seen it live from the msn.co.uk home page.
Results don't seem to be Inktomi or anything else obvious either. Their new crawler maybe?
<added>In the past I think MSN has redirected about 5% of traffic to the beta searches for testing purposes</added>
Looks like the same just missing Look$ - Would be lovely if these results were things to come - but I would not place any bets on it
<added>Andy beat me to dropping the url :)</added>
So I think the results are just some kind of customised/geo-targeted Inktomi serps, with Looksmart descriptions where available.
Last I saw of Looksmart/MSN agreements was due to expire in December this year, but they may have renewed it since then (end of last year I think).
>>Looks like the same just missing Look$
Yeah of course :) I didn't notice because in current results, sites in the directory are not duplicated in the 'web pages' section, so the results didn't look the same to me at first glance.
But the SERPs have changed again the sponsored listings are now only on the right, the top three positions are gone, its straight into Looksmart.
msn.co.uk:
looksmart categories still at top and bottom
sponsored overture sites gone resulting in a huge drop for overture (same number of overture side ads appearing)
looksmart results now much higher (cost per click/paid inclusion looksmart listings)
msn beta:
Looksmart cats gone at top and bottom
sponsored sites still there and better promoted. Why? Because yesterday msn.co.uk numbered their real sites 1-15 - with the overture results NOT being numbered (hence not 'real results'). The numbering is gone. There are now 4 overture results not 3
looksmart directory sites all gone, backfill now added.
Conclusions?
Msn uk is looking for the best (most profitable) current results, perhaps trying to get better terms from overture and/or looksmart.
Or Overture has contacted them and proposed this to show how much more they could get by switching.
Whatever is happening, looksmart uk should be worried - msn.co.uk IS all they have.
Overture has extended its existing paid placement search agreement to provide search results to users of MSN Search, which is accessible through Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser software, in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan and South Korea through December 2004.Overture Extends and Expands International Commercial Search Relationship With MSN [corporate-ir.net]
I'm still unsure what benefit looksmart uk offers them that they couldn't do better themselves, but I think looksmart USA had more advertisers/partners (i.e. more success) than the uk version.
