Microsoft Accelerates adCenter Ad Index (adidxbot) Crawl Rate by 50%

Microsoft has increased the rate at which the bot for adCenter crawls websites.

According to the Redmond company, the move is designed as a part of larger efforts to boost the relevance of advertising campaigns ran through Microsoft adCenter.

In this regard, advertisers should expect to see a lot more traffic from Microsoft AdCenter ad index crawler (adidxbot) as the crawler moves through their websites and indexes content.

The Microsoft adCenter team has already started sending customers that are leveraging the Redmond company’s online advertising services messages informing them of the change in adidxbot crawl rates.

The software giant explained that the new jump in the crawl frequency for adidxbot from 20 to 30qps is only a temporary move.

However, Microsoft did not provide any sort of indications as to how much the change will last, or when it plans to revert back to the old crawl rates.

“Along with our consistent efforts to increase relevance for your adCenter campaigns, we will be temporarily increasing the rate at which your sites will be crawled from 20 to 30qps,” noted Microsoft’s Tina Kelleher.

“This is within the accepted standards for crawl rates, and is vital to continuing to provide the most relevant advertising experience possible,” Kelleher added.

Of course, Microsoft is offering customers that might have a problem with the change the chance to contact the adCenter team and see whether there’s anything to be done.

“If you have any concerns with this increased rate, please contact your account management team as soon as possible,” Kelleher said.

Microsoft is currently in the process of killing the crawler currently associated with the Bing decision engine, MSNBot 1.1, replacing it with evolved technology.

MSNBot 1.1 will be decommissioned on October 1st, 2010, at which time it will be replaced with the new Bingbot, which some admins might be already familiar with as MSNBot 2.0b.

Update (8-25-2010): various corrections, read below - I'm sorry for the confusion.

“Just to be clear, this crawl rate increase is only applicable to the Microsoft AdCenter ad index crawler (adidxbot) and is crawling advertisers only. This does not apply to the Bing index crawler (msnbot). For more information on the Bing index crawler (msnbot), you can always visit our friends over in the Bing Community,” Microsoft revealed.