Default MSN.co.uk giving very different results to MSN.com

Bug or intentional?

[cleanup]

Is it just me or is msn.co.uk giving incorrect results?

The search results are completely different from the msn.com results.

It seems to be a bug in the default settings because if I select the "ONLY FROM THE UK" box the results are just the same.

Does anyone else see this?

[Freedom]

Well, when I tried it without selecting "Only from UK" i still got UK results. From my end, it looks like MSN is serving up UK results to a UK audience. Sure there will be a big difference.

[GerBot]

From the UK
searching on msn.com
with MSN beta results
search phrase "widget"

www.braingle.com
www.widgetgallery.com
www.widgetgallery.com/view.php?widget=35868
www.widgetsupply.com
www.widgetsupply.com/page/WS/CTGY/ht
www.widgetsearch.com
www.widgetworksmodels.com
www.floatingwidget.com
www.widget.co.uk
www.widgetwidget.com

Can I get a list from someone in the US?

thanks

[cleanup]

Yes, thats what I mean..

Why have the "only UK" button if that is the default and the results are the same.

Does not make sense to me. Bug? design issue? or just the way they want it?

Surely they should default to "all of the web" unless specified.

or at least put "all the web" as an option instead of "only UK"

I reckon the UK users are going to be a bit perplexed at this one.

Can't speak for other countries, anyone alse in a non US location?

[cleanup]

I just tried MSN.es (spain)

Same thing, serving results from Spain and if you check the box for "only Espaņa" the results are still only from ..you guessed it Spain!

I guess this just shows how green this thing really is.

[sem4u]

It has been like this all the way through beta. On the old MSN UK search you could only get UK sites. Non-UK ones were filtered out. I am still yet to see the beta results on MSN UK.

[makemetop]

I'm seeing beta results on MSN UK 3 out of 5 times.

Nothing new with the UK bias for MSN UK - it has been on the beta all along.

However, it does not remove all non-UK sites - they are just shoved down so deep to be practically invisible! Rather like the old Yahoo regional bias but shoved up several notches. I've got a brand-name.co.uk site and brand-name.com site (hosted in US).

Brand-name.com is #1 for their brand name on MSN.com and brand-name.co.uk is way down - but on MSN UK brand-name.co.uk is #1 and brand-name.com is in the mid 70s. With UK filter on, brand-name.com does not appear at all!

Try it with a large American company like United Airlines on MSN UK beta - you will see what I mean :)

[cleanup]

Hi Makemetop,

I know what you mean about it being Yahoo regonal like.

The model even makes sense to a degree.

I just think the way they have the tick boxes is ambiguous.

They need to get that sorted so users have an easy way to choose all the web or the UK.

Taking out independant .com .co.uk web address and hosting is not really an option for the smaller players and what about .ca .au .fr .......?

[RichTC]

msn.co.uk is not live as far as i can see. I still get the old yahoo results showing.

msn.com is obviously showing beta and so is most of Europe but msn.co.uk is not. How long it will be before they go live is anyones guess

[cleanup]

I am seeing Beta on msn.co.uk here in Spain and since Spain is nearly always last in the queue technology-wise I imagine that many other countries are seeing it also..