Microsoft, caught napping, produces hits for Google AdWords and AdSense
December 21, 2007
The search engine optimization firm cyberpromote (www.cyberpromote.com) recently detected curious links in the search engine results of MSN during analysis for their clients. The analysis revealed that these links happen to be paid links from Google's AdWords and AdSense programs.
"These are not singular cases, rather there are several million links within the MSN index," states Thomas Kaiser, CEO of cyberpromote.
Google may possibly be pleased that every click on these results could produce an increased number of hits within the Adwords and AdSense accounts. Questionable is whether or not Google examines the referrer of each hit. cyberpromote could not verify whether or not costs are incurred for clients due to these links.
Microsoft undoubtedly has no interest in having these links indexed in their MSN search engine. Furthermore, these occurrences are surprising since Google has enforced certain implementations to prevent these links from being indexed. The robots.txt file at www.google.com/robots.txt contains the relevant entries to prevent the indexing.
"It is incomprehensible why Google's robots.txt file is disregarded by MSN, especially due to the obvious reason that it is only detrimental towards Microsoft", continued Mr. Kaiser.
As a general rule, all search engines adhere to the entries within robots.txt files. In addition, AdSense links should not be indexed since the entries at pagead2.googlesyndication.com/robots.txt clearly state not to index these links.
During analysis pertaining to specified keywords, cyberpromote found high search engine positions in the MSN results which belong to Google's Adwords and AdSense programs. Due to the strong positions of these links, it is relevant that they will usually result in a substantial number of hits.
After finding these existing links, cyberpromote's inquiries pertaining to Google's AdSense program produced more than one million links within the MSN index (see screenshots). The links for the AdWords program produced an even more startling number with over 4 million indexed results.
It is assumed that Microsoft will most likely delete these links shortly after the notification of these facts. In any case, it is also likely that Microsoft will investigate the reasons as to why the robots.txt files have been ignored. A problematic issue concerns MSN's lack of identifying these links clearly as advertising links. Conclusively, these links are advertisements, regardless of any unintentional forms.
For the clients of the AdWords and AdSense campaigns, it would be helpful if Google stated whether or not clicks from these links are calculated. Up until now the statements from Google pertaining to invalid clicks have been vague at best. On the other hand, one can also argue that regardless of whether or not these links are calculated, the quality of visitors may still be advantageous.

This press release including additional screen shots can be found at www.cyberpromote.de/presse/pressemitteilungen.htm

Contact:
cyberpromote GmbH
Mr. Thomas Kaiser
Tel: +49(0)8444/9248-100
Fax: +49 (0)8444/9248-299
Email: presse (at) cyberpromote.com
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visit our website at: www.cyberpromote.com
About the Press Release
Microsoft's MSN search engine has millions of links to Google's AdWords and AdSense programs, unintentionally producing clicks for Google.


 
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