Stefan here – sorry for the hiatus. We’ve been out on the road talking to people across the search ecosystem to get their feedback on what we think are some unsolved problems in the search space. More on that later because now we’ve got a treat for you all. I mentioned early on that we want to bring some people who actually know what they are talking about into the blog discussion (in contrast to me who, while able to talk about...
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To hell with unpacking. As we cast a reflective glance at SXSW and MIX09 in the rearview mirror, Live Search is revving up for Search Engine Strategies in NYC next week.  Members from both sides of the Search house — Live Search and Microsoft Advertising — will speak on a range of topics, including: blended search, future of SEO, duplicate content, link building, PPC, keywords, video optimization, and best practices when...
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Life can be cruel. You work hard to create new and compelling content for your site. You’ve studied legitimate SEO techniques. Everything is going well and your site is getting decent page rank scores across the board. Then it hits. A search engine penalty comes out of nowhere and knocks your site out of the index. Talk about a bad day. To be honest, most webmasters who get penalized know why it happened. They’ve used a myriad of...
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Today at MIX09, our friends on the Internet Explorer team announced the general availability of Internet Explorer 8. In IE8, Web users will see a number of Live Search accelerators that make surfing the Web faster and easier. Here’s a look at what you’ll see. Live Search Products Accelerator Most of us have researched or bought something online. And while it is nice to find great deals from the comfort of our homes, the experience...
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I was coming out of a doze on the plane from Dallas to Las Vegas and the man next to me with a perfect good ol’ boy Texas drawl said to his friend: “My money has a better time in Vegas than I do; it stays and I have to leave!” Las Vegas, despite its hotels’ mimicry of Paris, New York, and Venice, is a place like no other on Earth . MIX is of course a conference like no other, so the combo is unstoppably surreal. The hotel...
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Cheers, webmasters and publishers! You may recall that last November we kicked off Project Silk Road featuring the Live Search API 2.0 at PubCon as a broad beta. The idea was to support publishers and developers like you with a flexible search engine you can use to power your online business. Fast forward four months, and we are serving more than 3 billion queries/month and have received more than 5,000 applications to use the API. API Query...
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10 a.m.-ish Texas time, 4 coffees later, Betsynote:  I had intended to finish this post after breakfast, but it looks like Community Server had other plans while I was eating.   Saturday and Sunday of SxSW were quite full for me – I caught snippets of two sessions before booth duty in the morning, where I got to talk to a lot of interesting folks about Live Search – video search, cashback, the deep links in the home...
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This is not the Texas weather we are used to; in fact it looks a bit like Seattle today mixed with Chicago style winds. The wet air does not smell of smoke, beer, or bbq; there are no bats. But the Internet works and the energy is getting to that crackling melting pot. We began our Friday by meeting up with our sponsored guest, Nadia Payan, for breakfast and then off to registration at the Austin Convention Center. Aya wanted to make sure we...
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With more and more Twitter accounts popping up every day, we thought we should follow Danny Sullivan’s lead and identify where you can find all the information from the Live Search team. Below is a list of Live Search team accounts on Twitter — come and join the conversation! twitter.com/live_search  The official home of Live Search on Twitter. You’ll find announcements about product updates, partnerships, and blog posts...
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You know what they say: everyone’s Irish on March 17th, and our search data shows it! At the beginning of March the number of people that start searching for green beer increases by 940%. So if you’re one of those people, we thought we’d make your hunt for anything green a little easier by compiling some fun St. Patrick’s Day collections for you. Whether it’s enjoying a Guinness and corn beef and cabbage lunch at a...
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