Microsoft"s prototype MSNBot is crawling the Web.
MSN is working on a Web crawler, known as the MSNBot, that it will likely make a part of its next MSN search engine.
A growing number of Web sites are reporting sightings of the MSNBot as it crawls their Web sites.
"Looks like the competition will shortly be h(ea)ting up in the search engine world," says one poster, Martin Belam. "Microsoft have started sending their own MSNBot out scouring the web to build a new index for MSN search."
Microsoft has created a Web page, MSN Search Prototype Web Crawler to a number of questions about its bot.
"MSNBOT is still in the development and research stage," notes Microsoft on its site.
"This crawl is a prototype work. MSNBOT is not currently indexing for the MSN Search Engine, so your site may or may not show up in MSN Search results today," according to the site. "Although we have not set a date, it is our intention to eventually integrate the crawled contents into MSN Search results."