Has anyone else noticed more traffic from MSN?

[Deliguy]

I haven't dropped or gained any ranks in Google Yahoo or MSN in the last two weeks, but I have noticed a pretty big spike in traffic from MSN. Has anyone else noticed MSN sending more traffic to your site lately? I've seen this across 4 of my sites and I'm just wondering if it's a coincidence or natural change amongst my own sites or if MSN search is starting to become more popular.

Edit: I also noticed that according to Alexa MSN has overthrown Google for the number 2 position.

[scanmonkey]

I've noticed increased traffic from MSN.

I believe it had something to do with MSN testing MSN PPC Advertising. There were hardly any ads and there was nothing to click except organic listings.

MSN is showing Overture PPC again and that traffic has evaporated.

[Black Cat]

The majority of my recent traffic has also come from MSN, I rank well for website design and website development in the uk search but have bombed in google and yahoo.

I thought I had a good balance for all three but it seems that MSN gives my website more emphasis than Google or Yahoo.

If the ageing factor from Google has anything to do with it, then I am not too worried because my design site has only been up since late October 2005.

I will start to get worried though if the work dries up :|

[scanmonkey]

Black Cat, try to get more links with your keywords in the anchor text instead of your site name. That will help you rank in google.

The msn traffic is still there. But is seems to spike when they switch from overture to their spartan ppc beta.

[nerdbyte]

Yes! and I'm loving every bit of it!!! Me <3 MSN :)

[edit] Did I just say that?![/edit]

[dmcghie]

It is amazing but I have never seen anything like that before. The traffic from MSN was pretty awesome and still is actually. I hardly get any from Yahoo or Google even though I am listed in there.

I think it also has something to do with the new MSN Messenger. I updated it just a couple of days ago. Now I am reasonable good with software and stuff but that install was talking to me in a different language (it was English, but so technical and weirdly worded) that went right over my head. I guess it is by design as people will just keep hitting the defaults yes button and it does was M$ wants to achieve.

It installs also other things like a toolbar and a desktop search box. Pretty neat stuff except I already have the Google tool bar and any more toolbars my screen would have shrunken to the size of a mobile phone.

So people now don't need to visit Google (or the internet) but just type the search into either the browser toolbar or the box on the task-bar. A brilliantly captured audience. And we all know that people are lazy so the task-bar search box keeps people away from other search engines.

I am disillusioned with Google anyway at this time as they have lost the plot when it comes to search results. I want a natural search result, not other peoples adverts, or who paid the most to be at that spot. And I am not the only one who thinks like that. Friends and Family say they are starting to use other search engines alongside Google as they cannot find what they are looking for on Google.

My opinion feel free to disagree.