I was actually talking about someone else's study, but thanks for reminding me about that conversation. I remember you had that explanation in mind when we talked last year. It was sort of the obvious explanation, but obviously slipped my mind completely when I wrote this.

It's nice to hear what the outcome was when you took a deeper look, too. That's the difference between looking at the statistics and drawing silly conclusions, and examining the data to get at the truth.

I don't know about the legality/ethics of the hand edits (or whatever) that some search engines apparently do to boost their own properties in SERPs.

MSN might simply be looking at user data, concluding that their users prefer certain sites, and boosting those popular sites in SERPs. Since they get a lot of their search audience from their own properties there would be a bias toward those sites within their user data.

So it could all be perfectly innocent… and I got a bridge I'd like to sell ya too.

I think you might be referring to MY statistical analysis of MSN that turned up the supposed preference for IIS servers.

I know this post is pretty old, but I thought I'd better add my 2¢ here anyhoo.

That stats analysis turned up a whole lot more than a preference for IIS. Upon further investigation, it really didn't point to a preference for IIS servers, it pointed to a preference for Microsoft-owned properties, which all happen to be hosted on IIS servers (duh).

So stats analysis can reveal some pretty shocking stuff. In this case, it's a search engine seeding their SERPs with their own sites. Not exactly ethical (or legal, if you want to get technical), but certainly understandable.

Stop on by SEO Club again someday if you'd like to give the numbers a scan…

By the way, I've begun reading your ebook and it's great!

Thanks again.