MSN redesign may have hurt Bing traffic

Bing (Image credit: Windows Central)

Recent comScore numbers have indicated that a recent redesign to the MSN landing page may have hurt Microsoft's web traffic, including Bing's. The hit was hard enough that Microsoft asked comScore to include Skype, Outlook, and all of their other web properties in a revised count by comScore.

The problem is that the MSN portal used to point people to articles through Bing search results, and now they link directly to the outside sources, bypassing MSN and Bing altogether. In September, MSN's site saw about 3.79 million visitors, while the revised count for October including Bing and Skype is up to 6.77 million.

Do you guys have MSN set as your home page? How often do you click through on articles there? Is it fair for Microsoft to ask comScore to pad their traffic numbers with other web properties? Should they just shut MSN down and stick with Bing as Explorer's default home page?

Source: BusinessInsider

184 Comments

Well, those ending questions escalated quickly.
Yeah lol
I've it by default in my Lenovo touch laptop
Yes they did hahaha
Note that the source is Business Insider via some invisible Comscore data. Personally I rate BI as a 0 in terms of fact. In fact the only comscore data I could see on Bing for November showed traffic up... So let's not get too excited about these rumors
Shutdown! ...that's harsh...
Yes Bing should be the default homepage. I don't see how Microsoft is always shooting themselves in the foot like this...
Yes❗❗❗ I use Bing as my home page... What else makes any sense❓❓❓ BING❗
Same here - bing is my homepage, I never actually go to msn.
I've always hated the MSN webpage, ever since Hotmail booted you to it when you log out.
First thing I do on a fresh install of Windows was change the homepage in Internet explorer to something else; even though I use FireFox as my default browser haha
LOL
Bing is my default homepage.
I like the man homepage, every article should count as a Bing search
Yeah since that's the problem here apparently, can't Microsoft fix this? It seems like a very minor thing to take care of...
I like the woman homepage personally.
Yeah, me too
Its a option to MSN or not to Bing?
Shut msn down, use Bing with a button for Cortana too.
+925
I dig bing, hate msn. Such a sucky name
Msn died a long time ago. Just bury it already
Indeed. As a matter of fact, getting rid of the dead parts of Microsoft's brand will probably give more life to the newer parts like Bing, Cortana, and WP especially Bing as it would get more traffic and recognition if revamped and left as IE's homepage. Mircosoft needs to rebrand as hip(ster) and cool if it wants a fighting chance in this game.
Agreed. MSN is a homepage my 78 year old father would have (and I think he still does!)
What? With 400m+ unique users a MONTH! That's not dead...far from it my friend.
Not true. MSN still gets millions of hits monthly and not only because it is the default for IE. I personally think the new MSN site is really nice.
I like MSN news and finance, staple apps and websites that i use the most. Finance web crawler links for stocks should definitely be awarded to the search engine responsible of linking them.
I don't think you've used MSN on windows 8 laptops with touch screen. It works really nice.
I use em both I like msn page because it has news from all over.. I do keep in mind that there the same actually..
I don't use MSN homepage-_-;;
I would hope Microsoft knew this sort of thing would happen when they relaunched MSN. But who knows...
It sort of goes to show that MS are kind of spitballing and seeing what sticks. I'd like to see something that comes off as a deliberate plan...
MSN is ancient. I'm sorry but whatever they design or change on MSN won't work. Same as AOL,Yahoo msngr and other services that ran in the 90s. You have to upgrade and update constantly. Example is Skype, if it didn't went mobile it wouldn't have had this user base right now. It's too late to redesign MSN. I think Bing was a good choice for their app names and services.
I don't think that has anything to do with this. Many people still use MSN as it is usually the default homepage in IE. This is about Bing traffic going down because the articles shown on MSN are direct links to the article now, instead of to search results in Bing.
Exactly. It has nothing to do with Bing vs MSN really.
Why are they trying to keep MSN alive???? Until the app rebranding on windows phone from Bing to MSN, I honestly thought MSN had been allowed to wither away on the internet, and left to die..... Why did they exhume it? Bing is a much better name! And I love opening up to that daily picture!
A lot of older people like MSN. Which is why changing it was a bad thing. Companies don't learn that change is not always good. Sure bring new things, but do it in parallel.
I look forward, everyday, to seeing the new beautiful BING photo image. BING is my home page. I don't use MSN.
Microsoft should have never rebranded to MSN. MSN was thought by most to be completely dead. They should have stuck with Bing and leave it at that. I'm not sure why they even made the rebranding switch.
Exactly.
Well said, that was a dumb move... I thought MSN was dead.. As a matter of fact, I didn't think it was dead, rather I forgot about it, and I'm in a MS centric world... Imagine those who aren't using everything MS.... SMDH, and once again MS changes things up for the worst... MS needs to just stop switching shit up all the damn time❗
This... this isn't about the bing WP apps rebranding to MSN. You know that right? This is about a redesign on the www.msn.com website and the Bing search bar that's at the top of it. Nothing to do with the MSN apps.
Although I have to say: BI spent a lot of time speculating over the ppossible shutdown of MSN in the near future. This redesign, along with the branding of the apps over to MSN instead of Bing, certainly seems to signal otherwise. Microsoft is in an odd position having to juggle a portal brand and a search brand separately. (Of course, this is Microsoft, the famous disorganized hoarder of brands, so.)
Duh
You use that smoker today?
Right now actually. Some wood smoked chicken breast to add to my penne pasta Roma.
Lol! I figured so.. Sounds good.. Happy Thanksgiving.
Combination MS.
MSN and Bing.
Ming?
This doesn't affect me so... I really don't care much about it ^__________^ But I think they should merge both... let you customize if you want to see something else, like sports or anything, if not just a search bar like right now. anyway, Bing has that row with mostly useless articles I don't care about, so it would be nice to be able to customize that. but anyway, I rarely use msn, I only used it because it's nice to find scores and things like that, but I haven't done that in a while. no time for sports lately. ^o^
You can customize the articles by modifying your interests under settings. The same will carry from and to Cortana.
Yes if only your using Bing USA
This is true and let me tell you, it is WONDERFUL.
I use Bing as my home page.
Me too. Reminds me to get my points.
Yeah, only see your interests alongside beautiful pics!
MS is keeping MSN to compete against Yahoo and Bing against Google. Nevertheless they should merge both services and take the best of both worlds.
Love MSN :)
Bing, rarely use msn.
Well fir me both of them counts. Can't say about this.
Hmmm.. Direct people to outside sites instead of to a Bing search. More convenient for consumers. But what did they THINK was going to happen to Bing search hits? Seriously.
Bing is my Homepage. MSN is way too cluttered and for a homepage, takes too long to load fully. Bing is simple, clean and quick
I have about:blank as my homepage. Loads instantly.
I stopped MSN as homepage when they redesign. The pictures won't load on my Windows 8 tab after redesign.
Hardly interested
No it's not my start page. I use Bing search but I use yahoo start I hate white pages with yahoo I have it looking my way.
There's a thing called punctuation... Use it.
There is no evidence that there is any knowledge of punctuation.
On the contrary I think that Microsoft will be pleased with the results...Look at it this way it's 10 million users using a Microsoft service...to the Microsoft right now it doesn't matter what service you are using as long as it is Microsoft...just think it the way of YouTube and Google...then we will get a much better idea
MSN page is truly hideous. One of the ugliest websites on the internet.
Have you even seen the NEW MSN?
Shut down Bing and msn. Just name it Cortana.
Nah, bad move. MSN and Bing have way too many sub-properties
Not a bad idea, actually...!
msn for news suits the name. bing for the search suits its name. Microsoft earlier had made a fragmented branding during ballmer era. now things are difficult for Nadella. he has made the apt decision of branding. now they just need to promote their native apps on pc when adoption of windows 10 starts.
They deserve to get hurt by the rubbish they produce moving away form msn to bing and moving back to msn and plaguing us with renaming and no consistent strategy.
That's the crux of the issue, IMO. There doesn't seem to be a clear strategy of what they want to.be or do.
Many Bing service are not available in India
Most features are USA only
I say keep the Butterfly and bring back its color. :-)
I'm sticking with Bing. I like the daily pictures. Guess I'm too easy to please
Hope Bing is down more and more ,I hate google and tried to support Bing over it .but Microsoft don't care about the user outside US .
I love the new MSN design. A lot of our clients have us set it as their homepage on their workstations.
Stopped using MSN after they killed myMSN. I can't even add an RSS feed to the home page anymore. Bad decision. Plus you have to scroll through the unmovable click bait heading section to even see anything that doesn't appeal to the unwashed retards.
What is an unwashed retard?
I think ballanda is referring to the ignorant masses.
So that would be all of us then.
Whatever our major problems, the great masses in the U.S. are closer to overwashed than unwashed these days. Mental illness and healthcare, are of course, weak areas for we great masses, so I suppose I can't fault you there.
Really? You only had 7/8ths off your costumer base telling you to STOP CHANGING EVERYTHING UP EVERY SIX MONTHS FOR THE F' OF IT!!!!
Never liked the MSN page; didn't see the point of it, and quite frankly found it intrusive as a default start page. Layout was way too chaotic as well...
Kill it. Kill it with fire!!
I never use MSN tbh. The sites I use regularly are all bookmarked if I need to search for something I just use the Bing search widget in chrome.
I and allmost all my customers use Bing as primary s.e.
Bing all the way
I haven't used MSN.com for years and avoid it. I get my news through the phone and PC apps. (I know they're MSN branded but will forever be Bing for me). My landing page is "about:blank" in IE
Same here. about:blank is the best homepage.
No duh!!!
I used MSN for a week or so, but since you cannot choose the sources for news I jumped back to bing.com
I'm not sure why it matters when Microsoft owns both...?
Personally I like the revamped MSN home page and use it everyday. Works well on a surface pro 3 using touch.
Prefer bing
I'm not 60, so no, msn is not my landing page.
I miss live.com
But its all good since its a Microsoft service that's being used, just like WP getting crap MS apps while ios and android are prioritized, right? Right? I guess the Bing team just needs to wait for Windows 10, that'll fix everything....
I use both. Love the msn site as my homepage as it was set when I bought my laptop. I set Bing as my homepage on my Surface RT but I havent been showing it any love lately.
Love MSN
I tried MSN on release but I prefer Bing for my home page.
The new MSN is pretty slick. Really like the integration with Twitter and Facebook; plus quick access to outlook and onedrive
Archetype111 - I agree. I really like it a lot.
Bing is the way to go.
I don't understand the MSN focus. Bing was new, refreshing, and growing nicely. MSN just sounds old, looks like rubbish, and cannibalizes Bing's growth.
I use Bing for everything. I prefer it better than MSN, Siri an Google
MSN new update was decent its not my home screen but a favorite its nice to rearrange and see all ur info how you want Bing is just simple all around a few headlines at the bottom and nice backgrounds...... Oh yea forgot about OneDrive Skype twitter facebook are all on MSN even open documents and everything kinda like my personal newspaper
They shouldn't have rebranded MSN. It was rational to shut it down and focus on Bing.
I was drawn to the Bing page with beautiful pictures daily. Now I use it sparingly
Well, I rather dig the new MSN.. I set it as my homepage..
I just use bing as my homepage using FF. Being bombarded with stories and content I'm not interested in from ANY company is as annoying as hell - I'm looking at YOU yahoo! I'm sure the less techy people still using IE would rather a nice clean bing.com than the cruft laden msn.com as their landing page too. The importance of a nice clean uncluttered landing page is underrated.
Bing is my default home page for year. I check every day to see what's the today's image. The today's chipmunk is adorable by the way.
The Bing page is pleasing, and the daily change is nice. "MSN" is archaic, badly designed, and confusing because of the constant rebranding. Dozens of commenters on this site have already mentioned it over the few months. MS needs to get their executives to get their heads out of their asses.
But if they have their head up their ass, they won't be able to hear the feedback. Personally, if I could shove my head up my ass, there are a number of things that I would do while I was down there. Reading comments on a Windows forum wouldn't be among them.
Stop questioning me man. I'm gonna cry
I love MSN. I use it every freaking day. Sports, my topics, and some random news is all good. I think they have to give it sometime they just rebranded it about 2 months ago.
For the past 15 years each of my browsers have been pointing to about:blank
Use Bing,
So, part of the logic in this article doesn't make sense to me. It states that the MSN redesign now links to external sources rather than using Bing. As a result, that adversely affects site visits to MSN. While that may affect the click-through rate to Bing, they are USING MSN to click on the article to the external source so MSN traffic shouldn't be impacted as the article suggests. In theory, Bing is the engine they are using to curate the articles on the MSN page but they may not register as a click-through to Bing because they are using a backend process to pre-populate the articles rather than requiring users to click on a link to invoke the search. If so, it makes sense to ask comScore to change the algorithm. I don't think Microsoft is trying to pad their numbers.
Not surprising. They're competing with themselves. They really need only one portal site.
I don't really understand why it matters in the first place.
I like the new MSN landing page, I just think it's backwards the way MSN (which had faded into the past) is now stealing Bing's thunder. Bing had worked hard to improve their image. Their mobile apps had done wonders for their image, and then they were rebranded with MSN. A shame really, because somewhere at Microsoft there's a hard-working team at Bing who have given us some great apps and now MSN gets credit. If they were gonna combine services, they should have merged MSN with Bing, not the other way around, to add more net cred to Bing. Two cents given.
Changed my default homepage from Bing to MSN after the redesign.
Never used and never will use MSN as my homepage.... Bing is the best!
I use Bing as my homepage. Some of the search results will link to news articles on MSN.
I like having a collection of interests on a landing page that includes Bing search (like "msn") but why not just make Bing that start page with an option to display the msn-type portal info or not depending on the user. That way search is still front and centre.
Search IS still front and center. It's right there on the MSN page. Read the article, that's not the issue.
I've given MSN a try for the past couple of months, and I find myself aggravated more often than not. I like Bing way better, mainly because it's a much easier and cleaner interface.
I like the new msn page.. Its clean and has everything I need.
I like the new MSN page a lot. Great access to MS services and a good selection of articles. Business Insider are so pro-Apple that I can't take anything seriously from there anyway, but I also have zero interest in how Microsoft measures success. For me, the new MSN is great and that's all that matters.
When I start IE I have both Bing and MSN open up.
I liked the old portal better. Used it everyday for years. Loved the custom links section. Loaded fast. Lots of data. New site. Not so much. Its a shame. MS lost my daily usage.
See, I like BOTH web sites. I set it so both come up as my home page in different tabs. MSN's direct access to news and my email makes it nice to use, and then to search, I use Bing. Too bad not many other people realize that you can use more than one ;)
about:blank is the best start page for me. I open up lots of new browser sessions during the day. A start page is just a waste of time.
Microsoft should focus on bing, they should compete with Google and go all in it! Google is trying to enter every market of microsoft, so should microsoft. They should make bing awesome outside US also. In each country where google exists they should make bing, and also make bing maps. If the service is great users will eventually come. But users will not come to use current bing. It is poor compared to google outside US. so are bing maps very poor compared to google maps. At least microsoft can give the users option to map the places they know, and cities they live in. Many people will help microsoft to make bing maps better! I hope satya nadella puts a great amount of focus on Bing!
Bing, MSN rework is flakey on my touch device but it works well pinned (or docked or split or whatever they call it) on the xbox
I use BING as my homepage. They have all those trending topics, so I stay up to date like that.
To Bing or not to Bing that is the question.
Bing is my homepage but I rarely hit my homepage.
I have no objection to MSN, but I don't use it and never will. I like Bing as my homepage, it's minimalistic and simple. I usually never use much of anything on my homepage anyway, as I immediately go to another website (and consequently that's where I start too cause IE keeps the browser open to the last page as long as you don't quit out of it).
Slightly off topic, but I also wish Cortana searches counted for Bing.
I've switched to the MSN page for news altogether. Its on my phone so why shouldn't I? I have quick navigation to food, news, sports and weather just like on my phone. Bing I have in the IE new tab anyway. Sure, I do miss the pretty images oh the pretty images :D
I don't use MSN as a home page. Never have. However, it surprises me how many people do. Even in my technical field, I see Yahoo!, MSN, portals all of the time on coworkers desktops. I'm partial to the source site when possible. Bing is great, though. They should augment that as I do notice headlines and tidbits as I'm searching or staring at the beautiful pictures they present.
I can't answer those questions. Should I leave?
Why did they rename Bing news to MSN news? Bing was their upcoming 'brand' so why change to something old. It's kinda like Sony changing their name back to Sony Ericsson :S going backwards
Yet they got rid of Zune. MS, please stop going with the lesser ...
No, i dont | i cant count | yea maybe | maybe, i think better if user choose by themself
Never used msn! Only used messenger and that was a good 6/7 years ago! If not longer
I like the MSN homepage, it works very well giving an overview of curated news. They could/should integrate Bing automagically in the background but I'll be keeping my MSN, especially on my Windows tablet, thank you very much.
My IE homepage is Bing. MSN should disappear.
I use my own website for the home page
Yes I use MSN as my home page. And I do go to pages linked off of the MSN page. It's too bad that it's hurt their page counts, but I like the direct linking to the articles.
New tab is my home screen. No Bing, forced to msn when I log out of outlook.
I actually hated MSN before, after they changed it I stop making Bing my homepage. Msn is now my homepage. I get quick glance of some popular news and Bing search bar is right there. I actually welcome the change. Welcome to real life, where one size does not fit all
Microsoft says they want to listen to customers? Then why does MSN exist when Bing is what we want?
Options Just wish they made it more customizable and clicking articles counted as bing searches for rewards.
Why doesn't some like this new msn page?..What's wrong with useful self customized news in your own language, and mutch more-- I have not been on msn page until now after this information here at windowscentral .I think that msn is good ,. surprised was I..This is now my home page. and you have bing search on top ..can not get better.. edit -- Bing/msn It's just a name, no matter what it's called but msn stands for Microsoft Network. What does Bing means??
Bing is my home page. Don't ever visit msn before or after. Unless its for Bing points.
I like my msn page... With the infos I get as default home page
Just kill off the entire MSN brand!
Stick with Bing.. I don't use MSN much.
I disagree with most of those comments. I think MSN is great portal. I am from Greece and it's well optimized for my area. I use all Microsoft services except Bing which has poor performance for Greek results.
I kinda like the new msn page, I really don't know why they rebranded to msn, Bing would have been suitable
I keep Bing as my homepage. Gotta keep adding up my Bing rewards!
Why doesn't Microsoft just buy Yahoo already?
Bing bing bing. Msn page is too crowded. Love seeing the new Bing wall paper everyday and I search with Bing. Hate how all the apps were renamed MSN as well. Just as we're getting used to saying Bing MS start pulling it away.
I was right. I was absolutely right. I knew it was a STUPID move to rebrand things to the crappy MSN. I happily used all the apps when they were Bing apps. But I absolutely refuse to support the MSN branding. I'm not surprised it's tanking now. Stupid move, Microsoft.
To bad man is Microsoft
I use Bing.com as my default.
I use man.. Simple change all links to target=new. This would open all exit links in a new tab.
I use MSN as my homepage for quite a long time and wanted to use it as my activedesktop back in day with XP but Microsoft abandoned it in 7.
I hate to say I told you so...or do I? MSN is an old tired brand. Bing is/was a new, cool, hip brand with a nice, clean landing page. I don't want distractions on my home page. Nobody has ever gone broke underestimating Microsoft's ineptitude when it comes to marketing to consumers. They are utterly clueless.
I have Bing set as my homepage at work and at home. I usually check out the MSN website but only occasionally.
Dump MSN and keep Bing. They've worked hard building the Bing brand, which is finally coming into its own. MSN is tied to MSNBC, which isn't all that positive.
Probably just easier to copy your questions and answer below: Do you guys have MSN set as your home page?
>> Absolutely not! And the redesign did nothing to make me even consider it. How often do you click through on articles there?
>> Oh, maybe twice a day since activating Cortana Is it fair for Microsoft to ask comScore to pad their traffic numbers with other web properties?
>> Most definitely. If comScore numbers matter to anyone, it's worth padding. Should they just shut MSN down and stick with Bing as Explorer's default home page?
>> No and yes. No they should not shut down MSN, although it was better before the redesign. Yes they should stick with Bing as IE's default home page. I never use MSN on anything except the phone, so really, most of the resign's 'improvements' did nothing for me, and it just made scanning news on the phone not as fun as it was.
I tried going from the My.MSN that I had setup like I wanted and was my homepage to the "new" MSN. I absolutely hate it and now have My. Yahoo as my home page. I prefer video as a choice, not as default. I'm proud that I can read and prefer to read in silence as opposed to having to listen to the topics. OK, I'm an old guy but change is not necessarily good and this one wasn't. If you like the new MSN, fine but offer me the old MY.MSN back. No, MSN is not my homepage and will not be as designed.
Bing should absolutely be the landing page! Sad thing is so much bad info about Bing that general consumer see it and runs the other way.
I'm not even sure what a Homepage is. I have a lock screen, a start screen and a desktop. I have a tile for Bing search. I usually start my day at work by going to Huffington post for news. I've tried MSN for that but I like the easy front page links on Hffpo. I like the MSN page - nice presentation, and I like the MS service links at the top. I probably could modify it to work like Huffpo. I think I'll try. I read sites like this in part to learn about tech stuff, and I'm still confused as to the difference between IE and Bing. C\Google is now doing the same thing by offering Google and Chrome.
While I do use Bing for searches, my homepage is set to about:blank haha
US version of msn.com is the most pathetic web portal around. Why would one like to set it up as a home page? There is no real news there. Just big tiles pictures taking whole screen. Bing is clean and simple! Way to go.

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