Microsoft's Bing search engine has blocked access to approximately 1.5 million websites hosted on Neocities, a platform dedicated to preserving the creative spirit of 1990s web design. Founder Kyle Drake has struggled for months to resolve the issue through automated support channels, raising concerns about user safety and discoverability. While Microsoft partially addressed the problem after media inquiries, many sites remain inaccessible.
Neocities, founded in 2013 by Kyle Drake, emulates the freewheeling aesthetic of GeoCities, allowing users to create personalized websites for art, fandoms, and niche interests. With 1,459,700 sites and 13 billion visitors to date, it stands as a haven for human-generated content amid the rise of AI-driven web experiences.
The trouble began last summer when Drake noticed Bing blocking Neocities sites. An initial fix seemed in place, but reports of login issues in January revealed a full block affecting all subdomains. Bing traffic plummeted from about 500,000 daily visitors to zero. More alarmingly, searches for Neocities directed users to a copycat site, potentially a phishing risk, where credentials might be compromised.
"This one site that was just a copy of our front page, I didn’t know if it was a phishing attack or what it was, I was just like, ‘whoa, what the heck?’" Drake told Ars Technica.
Drake submitted nearly a dozen support tickets via Bing's webmaster tools but encountered only an AI chatbot, with no human intervention. "I tried everything," he said, even attempting to buy ads for assistance. Despite Bing's 4.5 percent global market share, the block is problematic as many engines license its data, and it's the default on Windows.
In a late January blog post, Drake warned users of the block and the phishing threat, recommending a boycott of Bing and its derivatives until resolved. "This is not only bad for search results, it’s very possible that it is actively dangerous," he wrote.
Ars Technica's inquiry prompted Microsoft to unblock the Neocities front page within 24 hours and derank the suspected phishing site. However, tests showed most subdomains, including popular ones like fauux (Wired Sound for Wired People), still blocked. Microsoft attributed some delistings to policy violations against low-quality content but refused to specify issues or engage directly, despite an open ticket.
Drake maintains Neocities has robust moderation, removing problematic sites within 24 hours, and would address any flagged content if informed. "We have one of the lowest ratios of crap to legitimate content, human-made content, on the Internet," he said. He hopes for a resolution to ensure creative sites get a fair shot in search results. "It’s really important for the future of the small web, and for quality content for web surfers in an increasingly generative AI world, that creative sites made by real humans are able to get a fair shot in search engine results."