Microsoft has a revamped search engine, intended to compete with Google, currently occuping the space at http://www.live.com.

Naturally RWB went there and entered “Bob Dylan.” The number one hit, unsurprisingly, was for BobDylan.com.

What was funny was that the thumbnail description of that site on the search results page says: “Official web site of Jewish artist, Bob Dylan.”

And that’s all it says. Interesting, huh?

Normally, it seems that these short summaries are pulled from the websites “meta description” field. For example, if you scroll down to what the Microsoft engine generously ranks as the thirteenth hit for “Bob Dylan,” namely RightWingBob.com, you’ll see: “Something other than the conventional wisdom on the politics of Bob Dylan’s art, and a peculiar angle on … ” Yes, well, if carried to its conclusion that would be “a peculiar angle on current events.” That was taken by the search engine from my site’s meta description field; in other words, I wrote that.

If you find BobDylan.com on Yahoo!, you see: “Official site. Includes news updates, an archive of albums and performances, CDs, an online forum, and more.”

Google says: “Official site includes discography, lyrics, sound files, and tour dates.”

Trying to find the “meta description” data in the “page source” for the BobDylan.com site is a task that defeats me, because it’s not visible in the old fashioned way, and I’m not savvy enough to be able to figure out where it might be pulled from. I don’t know if anyone else out there is.

I’ve sent an enquiry to the webmaster at BobDylan.com about this, and if I get any enlightenment, I’ll update.

There’s nothing bad about describing Dylan as a “Jewish artist,” of-course, but the choice to describe him as that and that only is, at the least, a little odd, don’t you think?

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Update: See resolution of this question here.

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• Other Jewish Artists
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• “Official web site of Jewish artist, Bob Dylan.”