Google ads coming from live.com

**ceetee** · 06-05-09

I'll post here because no one will check the Microsoft forum.

The title, anybody seen this happening?

I've noticed it since the beginning of April. Ads from several campaigns which I know were created for Google because of the tracking code, appear in my logger with the referrer as live.com, but there's no ad being served as expected. I use a different code for Microsoft and in any case the campaigns are closed across both G and M so there's no confusion there.

My instinct was that it was some Microsoft marketing shenanigans but I had a call from Microsoft and they don't understand what's happening.

I just checked another of my websites and I'm getting the same result from the 4th April.

At the moment it's free traffic but it could be awkward for a strictly no PPC campaign.

Anybody seen this happening too? What could be going on?

**ep90** · 06-05-09

Not seen this - sounds more like a bug in your tracking system?

**ceetee** · 07-05-09

Nope I looked at the server log file which confirms it. An example from today. A search for 'subscription' on live.com serves an ad for the Asus notebook created for Google and closed months ago, lol. Also see msn.co.uk in the referrer.

It's definitely a Microsoft problem.

**Andrew Starr** · 07-05-09

is the traffic from different IPs or all from the same one?

**ceetee** · 07-05-09

Different, here's a few

65.55.110.115
65.55.109.245
65.55.109.94
65.55.109.38
65.55.110.157

Update: Which are all variations of msnbot-65-55-110-157.search.msn.com