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Really? I just typed "Skype" in to the microsoft.com homepage search and got this: http://search.microsoft.com/en-us/results.aspx?form=MSHOME&#...

Hilariously, there is no link to download Skype. Click on the "downloads" tab, and it prompts you to download a webcam (?!) for $35.



Really? I just followed your link and got this: http://i.imgur.com/BO7wV.png

Hilariously, the very first link, "Sharing your world is easy with Skype", takes me to the home page of Skype.

When you search for "Skype" on Google, to expect the "Play" link to let you play with it or do you actually look through the results to find something?


It just looks like a sponsored link.

I guess my eye has been trained to skip those.


Tried the same thing: Searched for Skype, there's a big "Downloads" link at the top, clicked on it and got the following 2 results:

LifeCam HD-3000

Microsoft Lync Server 2010 Resource Kit

Yeah, not really what I was looking for...


Interesting. I'm curious, what websites do you use that would've trained the response to simply click on a downloads link instead of looking through the results of said search? I don't have the same response and I'm honestly wondering where that expectation would have come from. When I saw the All Microsoft, Downloads, Support, Communities links I didn't have any expectation that those were suddenly related to my search term. I wonder if it is because they are below the search box instead of above them?


Are you really saying that Skype shouldn't be in the section of MS' "Search" page called "Downloads" when I search for Skype? What is the purpose of "Downloads" then? Guess what, when I click the support button after I've searched for Skype, I expect to find support-related article about Skype, too.

It is no different than expecting to see images of my search term when I click on "images" at Google.


Regardless of your expectation, the fact is that they are related to the search term. Clicking "Downloads" after searching for "skype" takes me to this URL:

http://search.microsoft.com/en-us/DownloadResults.aspx?q=sky...

It's clearly searching downloads for "skype". And failing horribly.


Searching on Google and then clicking some items in the horizontal list at the top of the page (Maps/Images/etc) switches to the corresponding search.

Although to me, the "63,100 results" indicates that "All Microsoft" is a search category. The items next to it (Downloads...) use the same font so they look like alternate categories.


I think one thing that makes them less interesting options to click is that they don't show the number of results like the selected option.

All Microsoft | Downloads | Support | Communities

63,100 results




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