A few weeks ago, we wrote a post addressing the often-asked question of how to remove a URL from the Live Search index. Since then, we’ve received many questions about the process and wanted to provide more details about the turn-around time for processing these requests.. The reason for removal can affect the time needed to do the work. We strive to process each removal request within 48 hours of acceptance. However, some requests require...
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Live Search is busily packing to make a pilgrimage to the annual geek mecca, SXSW Interactive. Our mission is clear: We want to talk to you about search. Sure, you probably like your search just as it is. But we think it can be better. We want to make it better. And we want to hear from you to help us get there. Find us in the Microsoft booth at the show (March 14–16), roaming the conference halls with a video camera, and chatting up the...
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Maybe you’ve heard about Live Search cashback before — and maybe you’ve even taken advantage of it… If you have, you’re going to end up running into a predicament like the one below, sooner or later. (This actually happened to a colleague of mine recently): “I bought a Wii online; and then found out the next day that I could have saved almost $100 had I used Live Search Cashback!! I was so mad.” Now, I...
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We just pushed 55TB of additional updated map data and new imagery into Virtual Earth (and Live Search Maps, of course). Another massive release…they just keep coming, don’t they? 
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Many of you have probably seen the press coverage in the last day or so about the internal testing Microsoft employees are doing on our search product. There’s a good deal of excitement brewing over this test, both internally and externally, which we’re always glad to see. There have been lots of questions about why we’re not opening this test to the public. This sort of internal testing is actually fairly commonplace at...
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Do you wish there was a new version of MapPoint? Well, even though MapPoint is no longer available, we have a number of partners that can help you move to an alternative.
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GeoLife was shown at TechFest in Redmond this week by Yu Zheng (Microsoft Researcher). I figured it was applicable and you might be interested.
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Welcome back! This week we’re going to focus on something we all need to do — save cash. True story: I’m about to head to New York City for the rest of the week for a wedding. When I was booking the trip I had many decisions to make: what airline to fly, where to stay, what car to rent (OK, that’s a total lie — it’s Manhattan!). Because I had no flexibility in my dates, I couldn’t use the cool sites that...
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  Today hundreds of researchers from Microsoft’s worldwide labs in China, England, India, and the United States will gather in Redmond to exchange ideas with colleagues, show off their latest projects, and provide a glimpse into the future of computing. There are some pretty cool search technologies being shown that we wanted to give some love to here on the Live Search team blog.   GeoLife 2.0: A Location-Based Social...
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One of the best parts of publishing online is that, on the Web, anyone can have a world-wide reach. But while being global is made easy on the Internet, ensuring that the content you produce will be found by the right audience can be a real challenge. Search engines can have trouble understanding geotargeting because of a few technical limitations. These include: Search engines may not be crawling your site from the location of your customers...
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