Every day the Just Opinions blog gets crawled by half a dozen or more search engines, like Google, MSN, Ask Jeeves, etc. The two big ones are of course Google and MSN. They regularly hit the site at least once a day. A week ago, while browsing through the logs, I noticed that someone had come to the site from the internal Microsoft corporate network. That’s interesting, I thought. I wonder what they think of my post, which is featured in the sidebar, entitled “God, I hate Microsoft”?
Ever since that day, the MSNBot has not been back. The last time it crawled the site was January 2nd. When I type “God, I hate Microsoft” into Google, Just Opinions comes up at number three. When I type “God, I hate Microsoft” into the MSN search box, Just Opinions doesn’t come up at all. I think I’ve been banned.
This would be typical of the Microsoft philosophy of we know what’s good for you, like it or lump it. They still don’t get the web. The search engine that will ultimately prevail is the one that is the most honest. Censorship and paternalism are not what people look for in a search engine, or, for that matter, in a browser.
UPDATE: Whoops! MSNbot just crawled me on Jan. 7. So I guess I was just being paranoid. The bot must have been on vacation over the holidays.