The Search Engine Mystery
I’ve been looking at this web site’s statistics for a while now. Between almost 840 posts, the site covers almost anything under the sun – little of relevance, but a diverse spread of subjects, so that I get a good number of visitors from search engines such as Google, Windows Live (Bing), or, increasingly, Exalead.
It always amazes me to see through which search terms people find my site. Google users would, for example, search for Urban Karahi Hanwell or Pommes Dauphinoise and find my post that mentions the Urban Karahi restaurant in Hanwell (or the one about Pommes Dauphinoise).
On the other hand, Windows Live users seem to be searching for simple generic terms such as summer or geese – a broad search unlikely leading to success.
Would anyone know what is going on?
Are Google users way smarter than Windows Live users? Is someone building a meta-index through Windows Live? Will Windows Live not reveal the full original search term?
I am inclined to think it must be the latter, in which case Microsoft would be one small step ahead in the game of protecting surfers’ privacy. Can anyone shed some light on this?
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I don’t think Microsoft conceal the search terms their users use to arrive at your website. You can test it, by trying some complex searches (which you know will bring you to your blog) and then checking your stats to see if your keywords show up properly. I bet they do.
In my experience, people use ‘stupid’ search terms on all the search engines!