MSNBot is about to retire and its predecessor, BingBot, is taking over. To make the technicalities clearer, below is a list of what to expect from this new crawler:

Name change in user agent name: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; bingbot/2.0 +http://www.bing.com/bingbot.htm)

HTTP header form: bingbot(at)microsoft.com

Important reminders:

1. Implementation will start on October 1st. Shortly thereafter, other MSNBot crawlers will be phased out. No change will be seen in its performance.

2. Review server configurations in case adjustments are needed.

3. BingBot will still recognize all applicable robots.txt directives, including those of MSNBot. On the date of implementation, BingBot will take precedence on detection of separate sets of custom directives for both MSNBot and BingBot robots.txt.

4. Bing is now powering Yahoo! so it is important for it to have the same access to your site as given to MSNBot.

5. No changes done for IP addresses.

6. Crawl rate is not affected.

7. Use standard search engine optimization (SEO) methods.

This new spider is an opportunity to maximize your online presence. Check your web logs now to see the new crawler.

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