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back to article Microsoft search bribery machine in Black Friday breakdown

Microsoft's search bribery machine shut down for several hours on Black Friday, continuing to exhibit a unique talent for online comedy. In May, as part of a desperate bid to boost traffic, Microsoft began bribing people to use its second rate search engine. If you use Live Search ads to find and buy certain stuff, Redmond …

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  1. P. Timothy Ervin
    Alert

    Improvement?

    Type your comment here — plain text only, no HTMLIn an earlier article, you say that Microsoft has a "third rate" search machine; here you call it "second rate". Has anything improved?

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  2. Scott

    Much worse than being reported in popular media

    You should see how much havoc this was causing to people on slickdeals.net.

    Here:

    http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?sduid=327000&t=1046236

    and here:

    http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?sduid=327000&t=1042651

    are a total of around 5,100 posts in two threads - the most postings I've ever seen on that forum about one deal. I was there on BF for the morning, waiting for the deal to go live, then suffering for hours waiting for live cashback to come up. Nicknames given to it were "live crash" and "crashback".

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  3. gizmo23
    Happy

    Microsoft improving (shock, amazement)

    Follow the $714 story link and see

    "Microsoft began bribing people to use its third rate search engine"

    on this page it's

    "Microsoft began bribing people to use its second rate search engine"

    That's a 33% improvement!

    Next time it'll be first rate, just you wait and see.

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  4. Len Goddard
    Linux

    Improvement

    Hmmm. I notice that the search engine was described as third rate when the linked post was made, but is now described as second rate. Has it really improved that much?

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  5. The Mole
    Stop

    Never lose notebook data ever again...

    Type your comment here — plain text only, no HTML

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  6. The Mole
    Stop

    Getting better

    Well the good news for Microsoft is that el Reg think it is getting better - it was a third rate search engine in the ebay cash article now it is only second rate!

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  7. Anonymous Coward
    Linux

    That will teach them

    Should have used a Linux based back end :)

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  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    my one experience

    of using microsoft's search was after installing windows on a pc, i started up IE and searched for Firefox. When i didn't get the expected result on the first page. i never looked back.

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  9. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Me too

    Yeah me too for that third rate/second rate thing - well funny and that. Gets better each time you hear it etc

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  10. Brand Hilton
    Dead Vulture

    Black Friday not the biggest shopping day

    So I'm picking nits. Whatever. http://www.snopes.com/holidays/thanksgiving/shopping.asp

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  11. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    It actually works well, even for regular (non-shopping) searches

    Of course all the people who call it 2nd or 3rd rate seem to be in love with Google's spam-filled effluvia. Try doing searches (yes, more than one you ADD-sucking freaks) on both sometime and see what you get - open up your microscopic nit-brain sometime, Gootards! PH=YOU!

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  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @It actually works well, even for regular (non-shopping) searches

    Got to agree with you,

    I switched to MS's offering because I don't like the fact that Google seem to be pro Scientology. So far they have given in to just about every whim of the cult with regard to take down orders on youpube.

    If they grow some balls, then I'll think about making them my home page again.

    Anon because I don't want to be plagued by twunts in a cult.

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