# Why doesn't google show hotmail as 1st hit when you put "hotmail" in? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 2, 2005, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-google-show-hotmail-as-1st-hit-when-you-put-hotmail-in/287950 "2005-02-02T06:07:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jojo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ecd19e/32.png) [@Jojo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jojo)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2005, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-google-show-hotmail-as-1st-hit-when-you-put-hotmail-in/287950/1 "2005-02-02T06:07:02Z")
This is something that’s been bothering me for a while. When you put “hotmail” into google you get [this page](http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=hotmail&meta=) which has as the the first hit: “Sign-In Access Error” If you click on that link you get hotmail as normal but why don’t you get a first hit that says “Hotmail”? This is Microsoft for God’s sake, not some two bit email site - surely they would have fixed this. But I’ve been seeing this message for a long time now (coupla years maybe) and I get it on different computers so it’s not something to do with my computer. Does anyone else get this when they put “hotmail” into google? ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2005, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-google-show-hotmail-as-1st-hit-when-you-put-hotmail-in/287950/2 "2005-02-02T06:12:52Z")
> [@Jojo](#): > > This is something that’s been bothering me for a while. When you put “hotmail” into google you get [this page](http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=hotmail&meta=) which has as the the first hit: > > “Sign-In Access Error” Probably because [hotmail.com](http://hotmail.com) is merely a redirect page and Google is reading the code in the redirect. When you do click on the link you do not go to [hotmail.com](http://hotmail.com) and log in, but you go to its reincarnation, .Net Passport. ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2005, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-google-show-hotmail-as-1st-hit-when-you-put-hotmail-in/287950/3 "2005-02-02T16:34:14Z")
> [@Jojo](#): > > Does anyone else get this when they put “hotmail” into google? Everyone gets the same results for a Google search. Like **Duckster** said, Google is reading text from the code on that page and displaying it as the contents. ---
**Author:** ![Jojo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ecd19e/32.png) [@Jojo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jojo)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2005, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-google-show-hotmail-as-1st-hit-when-you-put-hotmail-in/287950/4 "2005-02-02T23:54:54Z")
OK thanks. I think I get the idea now. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2005, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-google-show-hotmail-as-1st-hit-when-you-put-hotmail-in/287950/5 "2005-02-03T00:33:40Z")
I hate to disagree with the OP, but no this does **not** answer the question. It explains what happens, but not the more significant question of why on earth Microsoft hasn’t fixed it. One presumes they are capable of designing a redirect page that does not trigger a warning about needing Java when it’s read by the Google-bots. One also presumes that having a Google-friendly page as the most-linked to site for your free web product would be valuable for MS as for anybody else. As I see it, there are three possabilities: 1. Incompetence–they simply haven’t noticed yet 2. Apathy–Hotmail’s doing just fine thanks. This isn’t a big deal to them 3. Evil–Microsoft would prefer you to use [their search engine](http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?FORM=MSNH&srch_type=0&q=hotmail), please. Having Google misread a major (and presumably wel-designed)l website like [hotmail.com](http://hotmail.com) does more damage to Google than to Hotmail. Microsoft is willing to take the hit. ---
**Author:** ![aeropl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f05b48/32.png) [@aeropl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aeropl)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2005, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-google-show-hotmail-as-1st-hit-when-you-put-hotmail-in/287950/6 "2005-02-03T04:08:29Z")
Google won’t change the search results to make the redirect page first either. They have a policy of keeping their results totally objective and free from human intervention. As an example of that, google has published [this](http://www.google.com/explanation.html) in response to an anti-Semitic site showing up as a search for “Jew.” > [@](#): > > Because of our objective and automated ranking system, Google cannot be influenced by these petitions. The only sites we omit are those we are legally compelled to remove or those maliciously attempting to manipulate our results. They also have refused to change results for searches like [miserable failure](http://www.google.com/search?q=miserable+failure&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8). ---
**Author:** ![TJdude825](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@TJdude825](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TJdude825)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2005, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-google-show-hotmail-as-1st-hit-when-you-put-hotmail-in/287950/7 "2005-02-03T06:57:15Z")
> [@aeropl](#): > > Google won’t change the search results to make the redirect page first either. They have a policy of keeping their results totally objective and free from human intervention. > > As an example of that, google has published [this](http://www.google.com/explanation.html) in response to an anti-Semitic site showing up as a search for “Jew.” > > They also have refused to change results for searches like [miserable failure](http://www.google.com/search?q=miserable+failure&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8). However, if you have a blog, or better yet, several friends with blogs, you can push anti-Semitic websites further down the list by creating links that say “Jew” and link to useful, informative sites. This is how the “miserable failure” thing happened. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google\_bomb](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_bomb) ---
**Author:** ![recurriman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8dc957/32.png) [@recurriman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/recurriman)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2005, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-google-show-hotmail-as-1st-hit-when-you-put-hotmail-in/287950/8 "2005-02-03T07:50:44Z")
> [@ultrafilter](#): > > Everyone gets the same results for a Google search. Like **Duckster** said, Google is reading text from the code on that page and displaying it as the contents. Strangely enough, that’s not true. A few months ago, me and a spanish friend of mine did a google search and ended up with slightly different results. (we were both using [google.com](http://google.com), he wasn’t using google.es or other variant). Weird but true. I saw the screen capture. ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2005, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-google-show-hotmail-as-1st-hit-when-you-put-hotmail-in/287950/9 "2005-02-03T13:29:12Z")
Possibly an obvious point… but no-one has mentioned yet that neither google management nor microsoft are directly responsible for exactly which page comes up as the #1 link for the term ‘hotmail…’ that this has a lot to do with the links around the net using the term… many of which apparently lead to [www.hotmail.com](http://www.hotmail.com) (who’d a thunk it.) If millions or hundreds of millions of people changed their link to the obscure redirect page, essentially they would google bomb the correct link in… but that seems unlikely. Given that [www.hotmail.com](http://www.hotmail.com) is currently the correct address, microsoft, which currently controls that domain name, could put different content there, but apparently they don’t care. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![dlack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5ac83/32.png) [@dlack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dlack)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2005, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-google-show-hotmail-as-1st-hit-when-you-put-hotmail-in/287950/10 "2005-02-03T13:54:30Z")
> [@recurriman](#): > > Strangely enough, that’s not true. A few months ago, me and a spanish friend of mine did a google search and ended up with slightly different results. (we were both using [google.com](http://google.com), he wasn’t using google.es or other variant). > > Weird but true. I saw the screen capture. Did you have different SafeSearch filtering settings? ---
**Author:** ![SpaceDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spacedog/32/9932_2.png) [@SpaceDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpaceDog)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2005, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-google-show-hotmail-as-1st-hit-when-you-put-hotmail-in/287950/11 "2005-02-03T14:30:42Z")
> [@recurriman](#): > > Strangely enough, that’s not true. A few months ago, me and a spanish friend of mine did a google search and ended up with slightly different results. (we were both using [google.com](http://google.com), he wasn’t using google.es or other variant). > > Weird but true. I saw the screen capture. As **dlack** mentions this could be due to SafeSearch settings. Also google does, I think, alter the results slightly if it knows what country you’re in (and it remembers if you tell it). Or it could be that google just updated the directories between the searches, as I understand it google now constantly changes the directory (rather than doing single periodic updates). It’s not impossible, however, that the differing results are being manufactured by some spyware or other on one of your machines which is inserting bogus results into the what you’re seeing. ---
**Author:** ![Jojo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ecd19e/32.png) [@Jojo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jojo)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2005, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-google-show-hotmail-as-1st-hit-when-you-put-hotmail-in/287950/12 "2005-02-12T01:30:01Z")
**Holy fuck** It’s changed. Type “Hotmail” into google now and you get [this page](http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=hotmail&btnG=Google+Search&meta=). The first hit is: MSN Hotmail This is too much to be coincidence. I’ve been getting that “sign in access error” thing for at least a couple of years and then it changes right after I post a thread about it. This all just confirms what I’ve suspected for a long time. I have the ear of the likes of Bill Gates. When Jojo speaks, the rich and powerful listen. Now Bill, I was wondering about a small loan just to tide me over. I’m having a little local difficulty at the moment finance-wise. A million should cover me for the time being. You can find my email in my profile. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2005, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-google-show-hotmail-as-1st-hit-when-you-put-hotmail-in/287950/13 "2005-02-12T03:12:13Z")
> [@Alan Smithee](#): > > I hate to disagree with the OP, but no this does **not** answer the question. It explains what happens, but not the more significant question of why on earth Microsoft hasn’t fixed it. One presumes they are capable of designing a redirect page that does not trigger a warning about needing Java when it’s read by the Google-bots. One also presumes that having a Google-friendly page as the most-linked to site for your free web product would be valuable for MS as for anybody else. > > As I see it, there are three possabilities: > > 1. Incompetence–they simply haven’t noticed yet > 2. Apathy–Hotmail’s doing just fine thanks. This isn’t a big deal to them > 3. Evil–Microsoft would prefer you to use [their search engine](http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?FORM=MSNH&srch_type=0&q=hotmail), please. Having Google misread a major (and presumably wel-designed)l website like [hotmail.com](http://hotmail.com) does more damage to Google than to Hotmail. Microsoft is willing to take the hit. I happen to do search engine optimization work. (That means for a fee trying to get client’s sites as high as possible in search engines.) I didn’t see the odd result the OP mentioned. My best guess is that because Hotmail uses a redirect from [www.hotmail.com](http://www.hotmail.com), theydo “cloaking” with Google. This means they feed Googlebot different content than human users. (Google allows this in cases where the intent isn’t to try and rank higher on Google.) What likely happened is temporarily Hotmail’s cloaking failed, and this screwed up their Google listing. ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2005, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-google-show-hotmail-as-1st-hit-when-you-put-hotmail-in/287950/14 "2005-02-12T03:14:20Z")
CORRECTION: From reading the OP again, what likely happened is Microsoft finally got a clue and started using cloaking. MS tends to be slow to learn things. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2005, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-google-show-hotmail-as-1st-hit-when-you-put-hotmail-in/287950/15 "2005-02-12T03:45:53Z")
Hmmm…so it was (1). Just goes to confirm my motto: “Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence.” ---
**Author:** ![alterego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6bbea6/32.png) [@alterego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alterego)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2005, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-google-show-hotmail-as-1st-hit-when-you-put-hotmail-in/287950/16 "2005-02-12T07:19:24Z")
The reason for the sign-in access error is that the search engine spiders which were being used did not support javascript. Gigablast still has a [cached copy](http://gigablast.com/get?q=hotmail&c=main&rtq=0&d=246006507739) of this error up: “_JavaScript required. The browser that you are using does not support JavaScript, or you may have disabled JavaScript._” Search engines returning the proper Hotmail title: A9, Alexa, Ask, Blowsearch, [Business.com](http://Business.com), Eurekster, Google, Jux2, Looksmart, MSN, SearchLimo, Snap, Sootle, Yahoo Search javascript error: Alltheweb, Alta Vista, Gigablast, Lycos Search, Mooter, something else : Ay-Up, Clusty (Wikipedia’s article) > [@](#): > > Strangely enough, that’s not true. A few months ago, me and a spanish friend of mine did a google search and ended up with slightly different results. (we were both using [google.com](http://google.com), he wasn’t using google.es or other variant).Weird but true. I saw the screen capture. Not weird but true 🙂 Google has many datacenters which you are routed to based on your closeness and/or their current load. Some of these are 64.233.161.99 64.233.161.104 66.102.7.99 66.102.7.104 66.102.9.99 66.102.9.104 66.102.11.99 66.102.11.104 216.239.37.104 216.239.39.99 216.239.39.104 216.239.53.99 216.239.53.104 216.239.57.99 216.239.57.104 216.239.59.99 216.239.59.104 Just plug these IPs into your address bar. > [@](#): > > Also google does, I think, alter the results slightly if it knows what country you’re in Yes, Google returns different results for all but a few of their 113 localized versions. exceptions are elmer fudd/hacker versions etc… > [@](#): > > This means they feed Googlebot different content than human users. I just walked in with Googlebot’s user agent and received the same page as with a mozilla and explorer user agent. Unless Microsoft is checking both for IP address as well as User Agent they are not doing this. There’s no good reason for them to do this anyway. I’m sure it depends on the capability of the search engine spider. Google has very recently upgraded their spider to begin doing some javascript backflips.