MSN
Search EngineOperated by Microsoft
Essential for organic search visibility.
Recommended action: Allow access and monitor crawl consistency.
Category
Search Engine
Primary use case
Web search indexing
Trust level
Review recommended
Trust Levels
- Trusted
- Generally safe
- Review recommended
- Caution advised
Trust levels are an indication based on category, operator, and robots.txt compliance. Always review bot activity for your specific situation.
Learn how we assess trustrobots.txt
Unknown
What is MSN?
Search Engine Crawler bot
What MSN means for your site
MSN is how your pages get discovered and ranked in Microsoft search results. Regular crawling means your content is being indexed and updated. Crawl frequency often reflects how search engines perceive your site's authority and freshness. A drop in crawling can signal technical problems, while consistent activity indicates a healthy site.
What should you do?
- Allow MSN full access to your site
- Check robots.txt to ensure important pages are not blocked
- Monitor crawl frequency trends in BotSights
- Investigate if crawl activity drops unexpectedly
- Ensure your sitemap is accessible and up-to-date
How to identify MSN
MSN uses the user-agent "MSN" and robots.txt compliance unconfirmed. Verify via reverse DNS: hostname should end in .search.msn.com.
MSNmsnFrequently Asked Questions
Should I block MSN?
No. Blocking MSN removes your pages from Microsoft search results, directly impacting your organic traffic.
Why has MSN stopped visiting my site?
Common causes: robots.txt misconfiguration, server errors, slow page load, or a natural crawl budget adjustment. Check your technical setup and server logs.
How often should MSN crawl my site?
Frequency depends on your site size, update frequency, and authority. Sites with fresh content are crawled more often. BotSights tracks this over time.
How can I tell if MSN traffic is real?
Bots can spoof user-agent strings. Check the source IP against known ranges. BotSights helps identify spoofed traffic.
Other Search Engine bots
Monitor search crawlers before visibility drops
Track which pages search engine bots visit, spot crawl changes early, and catch issues before they affect rankings.
- Page-level crawl activity for every search bot
- Detect crawl drops and spikes instantly
- Monitor the bots that drive your organic traffic
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