Imagine my surprise last week when I went to A9 as usual, ran a search for a term which I knew was showing up at position 3 in Google (the A9 backend) only to find the site in question in the #1 position. I was elated! But, only for a minute.

At closer look, I saw this “Powered by Windows Live” image over on the right side of the results screen.

Huh?

I LOVED A9 because I could do all of my Google searches and get credit for Amazon.com purchases (miniscule, but, hey, every little bit helps!).

No offense Microsoft, but it looks like I’ll be going back to plain, vanilla Google. After all, it’s the current king of the hill and provides nearly 90% of search engine referrals on the sites I work on. Microsoft only provides, I dunno, maybe 5%.

And no, it’s not just because I was interviewed at Microsoft and didn’t get the offer (I still think it’s because I’m 50 and none of the four people interviewing me was over 30 - young whipper snappers!). It’s just a practical matter. At this point in time, Google is what counts. Microsoft Search is barely an also-ran.

Oh well, A9 was giving me a (^Ï€/₂%) discount - that’s a whopping 1.57%. As measley as that is, it was nice while it lasted.