August 17, 2009 by Jack Fox
A webmaster working on Microsoft Bing has admitted to SE Roundtable that an MSN bot has been clicking on Bing ads. The Microsoft webmaster was very keen to point out that the system was set up so that there was no chance of these clicks being charged to a client though this has done little to calm the annoyance amongst PPC account managers.
The frustrating thing for the likes of us is that whilst the client might not actually be billed for these clicks (we only have Microsoft’s word for that by the way) the data is still distorted by these automatic click-throughs. With Google Adwords this might not matter so much as there are so many impressions and clicks to be had, however when we’re talking about a group of users so comparatively small as MSN’s then one impression or one click can seriously hamper your data.
Recent studies had shown Bing to have better CTRs and conversion rates than adwords, though this information has to call that into question.
Exactly why MSN is doing this is, so far, a mystery. It might be that they’re testing the system or simply trying to up the CTRs though at this stage I can only guess.
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