Forum Moderators: mack
Therefore, the you can actually visit the MSN.com homepage, but the SERPs you'll see are from the UK.
I am in Spain and MSN insists on re-directing me to the localised Spanish version.
When I change the language setting to English, I get English results, however the SERPS are totally different to MSN.com.
They seem to be a list of Spanish-hosted sites and none of the sites that you would expect for a search term are returned.
When I checked the .co.uk SERPS, I got similar (bad)results.
When are Google, MSN etc going to learn that sites from all over the World are hosted in the US and that localising results based on where they are physically hosted does not work?
However you could use the following url if you want to keep using the main site - [search.msn.com...]
Thats true.
It smacks of a post-design bodge to get around what is a serious judgement lapse on the part of MSN.
True. You can see the complaints about "why don't I appear on Google UK" dating back for years - so this is nothing new. When Google first introduced it they were praised for having something different to the usual domain filtering :)
For an equal number of years we have been saying, "if you want to appear in UK searches then you should have a .uk domain hosted in the UK". This MSN change makes it even more important, though having a .com based in the UK seems to work fine (as with Google).
Now, it appears, if you want to appear in the US (as far as MSN is concerned), you need a .com hosted in the US.
>serious judgement lapse..
This I doubt. I would imagine, judging the demographics of the average MSN UK user, that surfers in the UK searching on MSN are probably more interested in UK related results than otherwise. Plus, it boosts up their OT revenues as bid prices in the UK tend to be more than the US!
This seems a lot more natural and I would guess is what MSN are really driving at, at least I think it is what they should be trying to do.
The MSN.co.uk is maybe just an oversight.
It may also be intentional for local advertising reasons in the UK althogh I doubt it at this the launch stage.
At the moment all sites 'are created equal' in googles eyes.
Nothing being returned from a .com site out of the UK, nothing being returned from the 'target' country?
Nope, can't see how this is anything but blinkered and unrealistic parochialism, not much use on a global scale.
If you run a company that is global, Norton for example, then should they have a site hosted in every location to ensure they can be found by antone globally.
This switching to local searches jusy doesn't work when the internet is meant to be global.
You can add LOC:US onto the end of searches to get MSN.com, but how many Joe publics will know that.
Not that I'm complaining, this actually suits me. But for the average UK server it's not good.
So I guess "geographically" is the way they want it....I wonder who will change first..the users or MSN.
One way or another they will have to give users "all the web " sooner or later or Jo public might just notice the lack of results on the regional versions.
Excellent news for sites hosted in the UK who are now getting greater exposure in front of their target market. Not so good for people in the UK looking for American resources!
From what I can gather all this does is give priority to UK sites.
For example, if you're in the UK try a search for "MSN". You'll notice MSN.co.uk at the top of SERPs and MSN.com further down.
As far as I know MSN.com is not hosted in the UK.
You can further filter this and exclude MSN.com by choosing the "Only from United Kingdom" option.
Try this with other sites like CNN, I think you'll find this is the same across the board.
That confuses me, do they really think it will not confuse Jo user?
(or use the search builder)
Really what I want is ALL sites when I do a search.
I don't want Bill Gates telling me what I want.
Yes, advanced users (maybe) will get around to playing with the bell and buttons but Jo user will not.
When you go to the internet to search you don't want your local Yellow Pages, you want the web - All of it!
Peter I am aware of that.
Really what I want is ALL sites when I do a search.I don't want Bill Gates telling me what I want.
Yes, advanced users (maybe) will get around to playing with the bell and buttons but Jo user will not.
When you go to the internet to search you don't want your local Yellow Pages, you want the web - All of it!
I actually wasn't aiming my comments at you. If you look above the original quote was aimed at someone else.
You're still missing my point though, which that is you still get all the web on UK searches.
For example MSN.com is listed with MSN.co.uk, only MSN.co.uk is (quite rightly) considered to be slightly more relevant to someone in the UK than the .com.
In my opinion this is perfect for Jo user.
Try it on other searches; all the US hosted sites are in the UK SERPs!
If you do a search for a Country or Holiday destination in .co.uk, all you will get is a bunch of crappy homepages and none of the Official sites or important destination guides.
No-one (except the owners of these homepages) could think that these results were good.
Also, I think that most people want to see the main results (un-weighted by location of the server) first and the option of viewing 'uk-only' or whatever later.
Or perhaps Big Brother knows that nobody clicks on the 'uk-only' links?
Also, I have notice that a number of .com sites figure well on both msn.com and msn.co.uk.
So the picture is mixed. Confused. Whatever.
If MSN don't put some reason into this then the only recourse will be to try to find a way around it.
As it is possible to be listed perfectly on both..
If anyone knows the secret then I am all ears.
It appears MSN has decedided its product can't compete as a search engine, and it is hell bent on trying to be competitive as a widget selling search engine, where these geo-located results are less stupid.
"UK results" is an oxymoron for the vast majority of searches. It's blatantly incompetent to think someone searching for "physics" from the US doesn't care about UK hosted sites' opinions, and vice versa.
It's called the world wide web for a reason, and microsoft is choosing to not compete on those terms.
The most laughable thing is where they think I live based on the advanced options default. It's one thing to make this stupid choice, but another to serve up results that miss me by 3000 miles!
I would imagine that it is simply down to where your server is physically located.
Another scenario that I noticed is that if a traveler tries to connect to MSN.com with their English-Language Browser/OS Laptop, they will inicially see the MSN.com homepage in English as normal, however when they perform a search, they are presnted with MSN.es - everything in Spanish with Spanish results and no way back to MSN.com and english search results.
There is only one place to go from there - Google.
I don't actually think that the US results are bad at all, but the localised results are terrible.
Seems that MS are sticking to their policy of releasing unfinished products to the public, I'm sure that version 1.1 will be much better.
There is no perfect answer to this one, but MSN must have done the math, else we woulden't be having this discussion.
Mack.
It is for this reason that it bugs me when I find such an enormous screw up I just can't understand it.
Like I say though there are exeptions.
I am looking at one site that sails right over the whole thing unscathed.
It is a .com site hosted and designed by a .co.uk.
Could it be that this (tiny) complication is just too much for the MSN monster and so it gives up and lists them in both versions?
Not on this planet. And this really is obvious. All you have to do is look at lists of popular searches. A very tiny minority benefit from a local bias. "Clay Aiken" searchers want the best information on Clay Aiken, not websites about Clay Aiken hosted within a two block radius of their web host.
They made a choice based around building their search engine into a niche that still is a very tiny part of Internet searches.
It isn't PFI, it is LFI... location for inclusion, and like pfi it will fail miserably because the searching public wants useful-to-them results, not ones arbitrarily manipulated by a criteria other than quality.
A search engine can try to manipulate people to care about things they don't care about, but it is a fool's errand.
"Clay Aiken" searchers want the best information on Clay Aiken, not websites about Clay Aiken hosted within a two block radius of their web host.
Very eloquently put SteveB, that's the point I've been trying to make all day.
search.msn.com/?noredir=1
I was going to say that I manually edited between msn.com and msn.co.uk.
I definitely got British results that way.
I also found I fell completely out of the SERPS for the first several pages,
as my site is hosted in the USA. - Larry
