After trying to get into the Microsoft webmaster tools, again, and clearing all my cookies and clearing my cache I was getting really frustrated with it. The I had a brain wave what if I use Internet Explorer to try and get in. No way that Microsoft would make a website that webmasters who didn’t use a crappy browser would not be able to access! Yeah right – first time in IE and all of a sudden I can add sites like Xmas came early. Un-fookin-believable. To get into Microsoft Webmaster Tools you need to use IE.

Am well annoyed by this. I hate IE – I can’t use i. I like all my little toolbars, I like changing to a black and red looking browser on occassion, and sometime I even like my browser to look like its Internet Explorer. But I do not like being forced to use Internet Explorer.

Am sure Bill @ Spiderwriting will love this! Let the Microsoft webmaster tool bashing commence. There are times when Googles dominance seems like a good thing – not often but just occasionally maybe that do not bad stuff really does exist!

Oh and as an aside every XML file they want you to put up has the same name – nice! So I’m now going to adapt one of my spiders to check competitors sites and start seeing what level of usage these Microsoft webmaster tools are getting – guess the usage figures could be low.

I just saw today that Microsft have launched their equivalent of Google Webmaster Tools at http://webmaster.live.com/. I was really interested to have a look at this.

Hmm. I’m not overly convinced by this but according to comscore the last month has seen MSN start to catch up with Google in the United Kingdom in terms of reach. I’m happily ensconced in a little UK Google Bubble and this may be why I’ve missed the surge of traffic coming to my sites from MSN.