I will have to stand by my original comment that backlinks are playing a major role in placing sites on the new MSN. I seo'd a site recently using link building first - this might take a wile to kick in, and then I did the on-page stuff. Before I finished the on-page stuff, I was on top of MSN, but only for the words contained within my backlink anchor text. Now that on-page is implemented, im there for many more keywords , but none as high as the ones with backlink anchor text.