MSN Search Engine Favors IIS 565
Scud writes "It appears that if you want to rise up in the rankings over at the MSN search engine you would do well to host your page on IIS. Ivor Hewitt has done a study and it appears that by using IIS, you are likely to increase your odds of a higher listing by several percent."
IE bias too (Score:5, Funny)
Re:IE bias too (Score:4, Insightful)
1) Maybe it is Google discriminating *against* IIS, not Microsoft for.
2) Maybe there is a correlation between things like website type (i.e. corporate vs.
Re:IE bias too (Score:3, Informative)
He said that the distibution of servers from Google's results matched those published by Netcraft (http://news.netcraft.com/archives/web_server_sur
Re:IE bias too - RTFA (Score:4, Informative)
I guess the "MSN against Google" report is more attention grabbing.
Now I'm convinced it's nothing... (Score:3, Insightful)
FTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words, there are some explanations out there other than "MS is biased and there's a conspiracy and they are trying to take over the world"...
Re:FTFA (Score:3, Insightful)
-matthew
Re:FTFA (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe... "ya know, I think we ought to favor IIS because IIS is our product"?
Re:FTFA (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, if you are a "decision maker" who uses MSN Search, you'll see IIS everywhere. It will influence your opinion: you'll think it is more ubiquitous than it is.
Re:FTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
No, there is no conspiracy. There may be a company policy , but conspiracies require more than one party. MSN is part of Microsoft, so this isn't the case.
Now, if Yahoo or Google were doing it, too, that could be a conspiracy.
Conspiracies of one (Score:4, Informative)
As an example, let's say that one person is a company's bookkeeper and CFO. (This isn't uncommon in small companies.)
As a bookkeeper she cooks the books to cover her embezzlement.
As CFO she prepares false financial documents for her company and its investors.
One person, criminal acts in two roles, so in many states she can be charged with conspiracy in addition to embezzlement.
BTW, this isn't a "conspiracy" in the legal sense since it's not a crime to give preferential service on the basis of web server. It's sleazy unless it's fully disclosed, but it's not a crime unless they actually sell the search engine as an unbiased tool.
Re:Conspiracies of one (Score:3, Insightful)
This would not be true if it having a higher status in the search engine meant more hits which meant more business. It could be argued that that was a discriminatory practice that could be quantified as a loss in dollars. Or possibly a monopolistic prac
Re:"Conspiracy" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:FTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
My guess is that the server differences are somehow correlated with something weighted differently in their rankings. As someone else noted, the real test would be switching the server on which a site is hosted and seeing if its rank changes.
Or if that's too much work, one could also argue that Google ranks IIS down!
Experimental protocol. (Score:4, Interesting)
If you have mod_header installed, just add the below line to httpd.conf:
Header set Server "Microsoft-IIS/6.0"
Re:FTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
Or if that's too much work, one could also argue that Google ranks IIS down!
The problem with that is that Google (for now?) has zip, zilch, nada, and nil to gain directly by ranking any given server up or down. Google does not distribute or sell web servers, nor have any direct stock in any particular server and its success or failure. Microsoft, on the other hand, makes a web server - and if their search engine adjusts ranking in any way based on the presence or absence of that web server, that is rather fishy.
One could argue, of course, that Google has a stake in certain web servers (i.e. ones not controlled by companies like Microsoft) by virtue of them keeping the WWW open, and thus providing a viable arena for Google's search technology and money-making adverts. That's a bit different, though, and I'm not aware of any indication that Google favors open source web servers (or whatever) in their results.
Re:FTFA (Score:3, Interesting)
As it well should. As much as anyone may not like to admit it, IIS is bad for the Internet.
Re:FTFA (Score:3, Insightful)
Yep, I'm sure that's what they want. So suddenly on Netcraft, it looks like IIS is gaining huge numbers at the expense of Apache.
"See - webmasters are taking advantage of our superior blah, foo, and duh."
Re:FTFA (Score:3, Insightful)
No, you THINK about TFA (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words, there are some explanations out there other than "MS is biased and there's a conspiracy and they are trying to take over the world"... "
It's called plausible deniability. "Why, no, we had no idea this would happen. You say it's an interaction with an IIS feature that causes this to happen? Heavens to Betsy, we never thought of that."
Microsoft people aren't stupid, and they ARE trying to take over the computer world, or haven't you been paying attention to what they say and what they have done? The engineers that built MSN Search would certainly be aware of any interaction that fits with IIS features to provide enchanced indexing. They would have been all over it from the beginning. And a side-effect means that IIS sites come out higher? Great! It's a feature that benefits us, they would think.
Of course MS is biased. Of course they would have noticed this. Of course they like it.
it's foolish... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:it's foolish... (Score:4, Insightful)
Do we see a significant effect? Is it just chance? (Score:5, Insightful)
Leads me to think: is it significant? That is, can we exclude (to a reasonable certainty, that is, p>0.95) the possibility that the effect seen cannot be attributed to chance or some other criterion MSN uses?
Ivor says at some point The initial set of words indeed showed a significant difference between the results from Google and the results from the Beta MSN search..
But what does he mean? I would be interested in what kind of significance test was applied, what the exact results were. Just looking at the ratio of percentages doesn't tell me enough... One should go back at the original data (seems provided, good) and check if the effect is actually trustworthy or just, in Ivor's words, "Odd. Pure coincidence perhaps."
Before seeing some analysis of significance, I don't believe anything...
Re:Do we see a significant effect? Is it just chan (Score:5, Informative)
First off, I looked at the difference in means for Apache rankings in MSN and Google. 61.5% (MSN) vs. 64.3% (Google) for 970 observations [www.ivor.it] Right there, you ought to be able to eyeball it and see significance. But, to make sure, here are the results of a t-test which checks the likelihood that two matched sets have different means (forgive the crappy formatting):
M G
Mean 0.615061856 0.642948454
Variance 0.01100624 0.008740111
Observations 970 970
Hypothesized Mean Difference 0
df 969
t Stat -10.51551356
P(one-tail) 7.26569E-25
t Critical one-tail 1.646427658
P(two-tail) 1.45314E-24
t Critical two-tail 1.962415113
As you can see, the P is 1.45 x 10^-24, which at least makes us think the results are not pure coincidence. I don't intend on speculating on the causality, though...
Re:Bogus Stats (Score:3, Informative)
I hadn't read his F'ing Link and thought 1000 were each individual webservers for a particular search term.
He meant 1000 different searches, which is a sensible way to do it.
His stats may be fine.
Top MSN Rankings (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Top MSN Rankings (Score:5, Funny)
Only if the picture does not include, targets, crosshairs, or cream pie. [bitstorm.org]
Silly, silly boys (and girls) (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Silly, silly boys (and girls) (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Silly, silly boys (and girls) (Score:3)
And then you would also need to move it _back_ to Apache to see if the ranking declines again.
Re:Silly, silly boys (and girls) (Score:5, Funny)
I thought moving it back to apache would be the natural thing to do after running a webpage on IIS for a short while... *shudder*
Re:Silly, silly boys (and girls) (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Silly, silly boys (and girls) (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sure that's true, but do you think their spider is checking the TCP stack on every connection. It's probably just looking at the header the server sends like the grandparent stated. Why look at anything else, until of course everyone hacks their Apache servers to say they are IIS...
Re:Silly, silly boys (and girls) (Score:3, Interesting)
I was simply offering some insight regarding this comment. Whether or not the Spiders check the TCP stack is beyond the point I was getting at.
FWIW, Netcraft seem to look at the TCP signature, so I don't think it's far fetched to assume it could be implemented in MSN's spiders.
This link is an interesting read on why the HTTP h
I laugh at Microsoft. (Score:5, Insightful)
Google makes money by prioritising quality. Microsoft makes money by prioritising money.
Go figure.
Re:I laugh at Microsoft. (Score:2, Interesting)
Most search engine users are very fickle, they don't care who provides it as long as the thing works, and this is why I think google may be in trouble in the future. MSN.com is the default page for just about every windows machine, if MS gets something th
Re:I laugh at Microsoft. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I laugh at Microsoft. (Score:3, Informative)
So... No. It is not that way you state it.
Re:I laugh at Microsoft. (Score:3, Insightful)
Investors aren't stupid either, they see the trend that people trust Google and they're putting their money on it.
Re:I laugh at Microsoft. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I laugh at Microsoft. (Score:2, Interesting)
Seems to be working out for MS though, doesn't it!
Re:I laugh at Microsoft. (Score:4, Interesting)
Google makes money by prioritising quality.
Google seem to make a lot of money from click-fraud and advertising, hardly noble ways to make money. At least Microsoft are honest about their profit-seeking, you don't get any of that sanctimonious "we're not evil" crap.
If you only have 20% of the market (Score:2, Informative)
Re:If you only have 20% of the market (Score:3, Informative)
If you were joking or being sarcastic well you went right over my head....
selection effect (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft (and nearly all other proprietary software companies) tries to hide problems to protect their perception in the marketplace. You usually only see advisories for major problems that will become public knowledge anyway, and numerous other fixes are piggybacked on the big ones.
But beyond that advisories don't really address the quality of a product. They're one metric, but nothing more.
Absolutely (Score:4, Interesting)
MSN it and it comes out about #7. Either they're being paid to reduce its rank (it's a bit subversive), or they don't like the fact I'm hosted on Linux, or they simply don't have a very good search engine.
If I put the exact unique title of a page into an engine, I expect that page to be #1.
Re:Absolutely (Score:4, Insightful)
It comes out #6 on AskJeeves and Teoma, and #5 on Gigablast.
My god, CONSPIRACY!
In fact, the only place I could find where you come out #1 is on AOL.
Re:Absolutely (Score:2)
Re:Absolutely (Score:2)
Re:Absolutely (Score:3, Informative)
(You do mean this link(San Andreas Radio [tinyted.net]), right?)
MSN - 3rd
Google - 3rd
With quotes around it:
MSN - 2nd
Google - 1rst
With a + (plus sign):
MSN - 2nd
Google - 1rst
I'm not sure where #7 came from (unless others have done repeated searches on this too). Do we know what Rock Star Games is using for their web server then to know if the IIS preference comes into play in this case?
Mirror site: (Score:3, Informative)
Would it even be worth it? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Would it even be worth it? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Would it even be worth it? (Score:5, Informative)
- Google 7873
- Yahoo 3163
- MSN 199
- AOL 65
- Dogpile 44
- Unknown 41
- Earth Link 28
- AltaVista 16
- Excite 14
- A9.com 9
- Others 77
...which comes out to about 2% MSN.
This is irrelevant for most websites (Score:3, Interesting)
For those who use hosts that do not provide these services, I don't think it appropriate to think that they are simple SOL. Rather, the better quality your website provides, the more relevant it is to the topic you discuss, the better it will fare in any search engine. The type of webserver you are using becomes nothing more than the tiniest fraction of your search ranking.
This is irrelevant for most websites (Score:5, Funny)
Have they gone ahead and implemented that thing about assigning you a hosting provider at birth then? What a shame. Back in my day, we used to be able to pick our hosting provider based on what they provided and what they charged for it.
Ah, the good ol' 1900's.
--MarkusQ
heh. amusing side effect (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:heh. amusing side effect (Score:2)
Not a controlled experiment (Score:5, Informative)
Just the webserver alone changing. This can happen by taking a popular site and then changing what it reports to the MSN search robots.
But until such an experiment is done, the data is open to too many interpretations.
MSN is out of beta (Score:3, Interesting)
That's odd... (Score:2, Funny)
nearly first in google not even listed in mssearch (Score:5, Interesting)
MSN loves me (Score:3, Funny)
If you search MSN for things like "anal fucker", "hardcore sites", or "why is leah remini fat now" there's a good chance UAC [uacomic.com] will be right there on the first page. And our site is PHP and Apache all the way.
Just have your Apache report that it is IIS ! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Just have your Apache report that it is IIS ! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Just have your Apache report that it is IIS ! (Score:3, Insightful)
Increasing marketshare statistics increases your marketshare further. What could be nicer that having your competitors fudge the numbers in your favor at the beginning to give you a head start?
This is why I'm against browser user-agent spoofing as well. UAs are like votes. Stand up, be counted, and leave your UA alone so that the stats work in YOUR favor, and not against you.
Re:Just have your Apache report that it is IIS ! (Score:3, Insightful)
if (UA == MSN_SPIDER) THEN
REPORT JUST LIKE IIS
ELSE
REPORT DEFAULT SERVER GREETING
You're kidding me! (Score:2, Funny)
I'm shocked, shocked! (Score:5, Funny)
- Crow T. Trollbot
Re:I'm shocked, shocked! (Score:5, Funny)
Noooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Microsoft products biased towards Microsoft! (Score:3, Funny)
evil (Score:3, Funny)
So it seems fair to me.
That's easy enough to fix (Score:4, Funny)
wow (Score:2, Insightful)
Why would this be any real surprise to anyone? MSN being MS is obviously going to give preferential treatment to their own products. This may be by design or strictly because IIS servers respond to some proprietary (yes I said it) requests that other servers won't.
I don't necessarily see it as an evil thing, but it's not entirely philanthropic either.
So... (Score:2)
Thanks, MS, for clearing up that confusion.
Seriously, it's like these guys are out to do as much evil as they can get away with.
This is why I'm willing to pay more... (Score:2)
Give me a damn break. It's MS's own freakin' web site, and they can do what they want (assuming this study is even really exposing causation, rather than correlation). No one is paying MS to be neutral in any way, any more than they are paying Google or Yahoo, each of whom tilt results according
Ok, this would be accurate under different givens (Score:2)
* Assuming it's true. This claim seems rather strong. Microsoft has no reason to do this without publicizing
That explains it (Score:2, Informative)
So? (Score:2)
This is funny. (Score:2)
A possible explanation (Score:5, Interesting)
These sites don't have any real content, they just point to other sites and/or exist to spam you with advertisements. Some of them have googlebombed their way higher into the rankings.
My guess is that MSN does a slightly better job of filtering those useless sites out of the index at the present time, OR the "googlebombing" techniques they use aren't as effective with MSN's indexing. Since they almost exclusively use Apache that would have the false appearance of favoring IIS.
This is just a guess, but it seems plausable.
Re:A possible explanation (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A possible explanation (Score:3, Insightful)
I've never... (Score:5, Funny)
Updated report (Score:3, Informative)
You don't need to assume malice. (Score:5, Insightful)
And search engine tweaking is more an art than a science. It's an evolutionary process, with feedback loops and strange attractors. So if there's any difference in the behaviour or design of Apache or IIS that would be visible to a search engine, it's likely to lead to a slight bias in favor of the server software that the servers they pay more attention to run.
IIS/Apache - No diff (Score:3, Interesting)
The only difference in the HTTP response is just that IIS adds headers and that IIS has that stupid HTTP Continue on handling SOAP via ASPNET.
Just telnet to almost any Apache web server and type GET / and then to an IIS server and do the same thing. Look at the top. Almost all non-IIS web servers return no default headers.
Microsoft.com:
redhat.com
Re:IIS/Apache - No diff (Score:3, Informative)
Re:IIS/Apache - No diff (Score:3, Informative)
When you telnet to port 80 and type "GET
However, if you use a valid HTTP 1.0 or 1.1 request: "GET / HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: example.com\r\n\r\n" you will get all the headers.
Makes sense (Score:3, Funny)
It's just coincidence that there happens to be a bias that makes IIS-hosted sites measure higher by this metric. ;-)
iTunes? Never heard of it. (Score:4, Informative)
Try typing "online music".
On Google the top two references are iTunes and iTMS. On MSN you'll have to go through a few pages before you'll see anything about iTunes.
Yeah, I trust Microsoft to provide unbiased search results. Sure I do.
m.m.
Re:Why would i want to do that? (Score:2, Funny)
* Sorry for that image.
Re:IIS imperial domination (Score:5, Insightful)
Banned from where and by whom?
MSN search can do whatever they like. I don't know anybody who actually uses it. Even non-tech oriented people that use IE (against recommendations) set their startup page to something else. Google, mostly, but also "My Yahoo" and their webmail or portal of preference.
Sweets for the sweet, lies for the liars (Score:4, Informative)
Add something like this pseudocode to your server:
if $Browser = "MSNSearchBot" then $Server = "Microsoft-IIS/6.0"
Re:Does the MSN robot have a signature? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Nobody uses MSN. This is a perfect example of w (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:why would u use MSN to search ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Gee... (Score:3, Insightful)
You are forgetting a couple of things. While your arguments are indeed valid, MS will continue to exist due to their insulation from the Karmic Wheel by HUGE PILES OF CASH. So, even if everyone said "fuck MS, I will not give them another dime, I'm movin
Re:Weak analysis (Score:3, Interesting)
Or see if, as at least three other posters indicated they do, Apache users are blocking MSN.