Diference between sea.search.msn & search.msn

sea.search.msn.com & search.msn.com

[Kubano]

Hi everybody:

Could somebody tell me which is the difference between those two referers?

Thanks a lot.

[TinkyWinky]

I noticed that too. Getting it when you miss-type a domain directly into the address bar

[Receptional]

Getting it when you miss-type a domain directly into the address bar

I don't get "sea" in that scenario. I haven't seen "sea.search" before. I wonder if that is akin to the google data centers? In which case there are more.

The results seemed identical to me though.

[cgrantski]

I'm getting about 1/3 of MSN search visitors coming from this sea.search thing, but it's been steadily increasing from nothing at the end of October. <sigh> I have to revise all my client reports because I didn't notice this before. For now I'm going to explain it as the MSN search that happens from the address bar of IE (if IE is set up to do that), as opposed to the MSN search on msn.com...but the proportion of 1/3 seems awfully high for that. Anybody figured out anything more since the last post?

[larryhatch]

Hello all: I did a search for my main little keyword on both sea.msn and just plain msn.
Both results were identical on the first page, 15 listings, my site #15 at bottom.
Even the single sponsored ad up top (some crackpot) was identical.
I Googled for those terms plus "difference" and that led to this same discussion!

Google spiders WWorld fast. - Larry

[angiolo]

I now tried a search on Beta, but the MSN Search (beta) is currently unavailable.

last time I did a serach, results were improving: less spam.

We will see after this maintenance.

[Imaster]

When you mistype any URL in the IE address bar, MSN searches via sea.search.msn.com
e.g. try typing hootmail.com in your IE address bar, it will redirect to [sea.search.msn.com...]

The page gives recommendations for similar sites to visit,

Did you intend to go to one of these similar Web addresses?
www.hotmail.com
--------------------------------------------------------
You can also visit one of these related Web sites.
MSN Hotmail

You could be getting traffic from sea.search.msn.com if your site is featured in these recommendations.

See related thread,
[webmasterworld.com...]

[cgrantski]

And it will also search on keywords, for example a search for "window shades" will include www.hunterdouglas.com in the results.

Google will also search from the address bar if you tell it to, but it identifies itself in the referrer field with the parameter pair "sourceid=navclient".

Kinda cool to be able to differentiate these. I've always wondered whether people often use the address window to search, and now I know how to tell.