Peculiar log entry from MSN

[tedster]

I've started seeing this in my logs lately. FastStats picks up "fallthrough-true" as a search word from these entries.

"http://auto.search.msn.com/results.asp?ba=60.0&co=15.4.1..2.1.4.1&FORM=AS5&RS=CHECKED&aq=fallthrough-true&cfg=SMCINITIAL&q=craft+stores&srch=5&v=1"

Does anyone know what this is about?

[DaveAtIFG]

I don't know what it's about either but I've been seeing them since 11/21 and quite a few of them too. Perhaps Position Tech related?

[tedster]

Good guess, Dave. The timing sure does have a positiontech suspiciousness about it.

Maybe it's worth an email to MSN about this. I want to know what my search terms were! Right now, about half my MSN referals are of this nature -- it sort of obscures things a bit.

[Air]

>FastStats picks up "fallthrough-true" as a search word from these entries.

It seems to be confusing the "aq=" with "q" which is where it expects to find the query string. They will have to update FastStats.

It looks like MSN just changed the format of the query string, the additional parameter appears when you do a search and then hit the "next" link to see results on the following page(s).

[startup]

I hope this helps.
My ISP is AT&T Canada, they use MSN as the default home page. I can search from the address bar of the browser. Every time I misspell an address in the address bar, I get the MSN autosearch. Do you know how many times I have done this ",com" and had the autosearch feature start searching? I know, more coffee.