Microsoft using MSNBOT to build its own search engine
by Martin Belam, 18 June 2003
Looks like the competition will shortly be hotting up in the search engine world - Microsoft have started sending their own MSNbot out scouring the web to build a new index for MSN search
"This crawl is a prototype work. MSNbot is not currently indexing for the MSN Search Engine, so your site may or may not show up in MSN Search results today. Although we have not set a date, it is our intention to eventually integrate the crawled contents into MSN Search results."
Tim Bray has some more on it.
Hmmm I'm off to check some logs...
The MSN bot is another grab for $.. the only way to submit a page to it is by signing up with a placement agency (looksmart) and commit to monthly fees.
I beleive the sucess of the other engine lies in the fact that they accept pages via recomendation and Bot search with an indication of those pages paying for placement.