For me in IE9/Win7, the "Start typing.." text disappears when I click. And when I type something, then that remains in the box no matter what I do, such as clicking away from the search box, re-clicking onto the search box, etc. (as it should). Is this what you see? Perhaps you can try other search pages, such as http://open.tip.it/items http://open.tip.it/quests