MSN UK Prefills Search Box With Advertisement

SEO Home reports that the MSN UK home page currently has the search box prefilled with the query “The Apprentice BBC,” effectively making it into an ad. Here’s a screenshot:

Clicking “Search” takes you to the search results for The Apprentice BBC. The first result I see is at http://www.bbc.co.uk/apprentice/ with information about the show provided by the BBC.

I wonder how much that cost? :-)

Postscript From Danny: I’m trying to get comments and more details from both the BBC and Microsoft about this unprecedented deal.

Postscript from Barry: It appears MSN UK is now testing several keyword phrases in the search box. At this time I see “Cricket World Cup” but earlier I saw “Euro 2008 results.” Here are more screen captures:

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About The Author

Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.