Microsoft Live Search Market Increases

Microsoft Live's searches are on the rise but it is hard to tell why.

1. One reason is that they have a "Live Search Club" that is rewarded by the amount of searches users execute.
   
2. Another reason may be that bots are on the rise that 'hit' Live searches regularly as if in a denial of service mode. The blog noted below states that bots are not counted and can be discerned from actual human users.
   

Compete.com commented on their blog about MSN Live that searches were up 67% from May, and 48% from a year ago which is quiet commendable. The blog also reports that Live took away about 5 percentage points from the other search engines, mostly Google, but SEO Metro is skeptical about these initial reports for several reasons, including preliminary comments about these statistics rattling Google.

MSN Search Market Results Skewed?

1. There is a defined difference between human users and bots that could be manipulated by technology savvy individuals.
2. Will this contest go on forever and do the latest search results comparing the search engines just discount MSN Live's Club and the prizes awarded? Compete.com believes so.
3. Are these results being generated and exaggerated by those wanting to hype another search engine over Google? Actually appears that way regardless.
4. May and June searches on MSN Live spike to over 3 million, according to the blog. Looking at MSN's past search records that seems out of the ordinary and would not be contributed to anything other than a contest. Noting kids are out of school this summer and wanting free Zune's and Vista operating systems that have been offered for prizes the spike should not be a surprise.

The results seem to be skewed if we are looking at the big picture and the long haul of search engines and number of searches.