We Are Number 1 Out Of 9 Million On MSN Beta Search

[eeko]

WOW..talk about a pleasant suprise. Did a search on MSN this morning for "php shopping cart program" and we came it at number 1. Number 4 for "shopping cart program" and number 10 out of 165 million for "website design"

Like most others our primary optimization has been for google and do fairly well there but this has come as a added result. I guess the next major study will be what do the two search engines have in common and now how do companies optimize for both.

Has anyone done that kind of study yet? Not sure how this will impact our traffic as google still appears to be king of the hill, but as more lean back to MSN it will interesting to watch.

[freehits]

Not that I place any stock in a freakishly high MSN rank... we are #1 of 25,845,340 for
"rent to own".

Its a small treat but nice all the same.

[No Clue]

I think MSN's new search engine is doing awesome.

my favorite search engines:
1. google (of course)
2. MSN
3. Teoma
4. A9
5. Altavista

[searcherdw]

What’s interesting about the new MSN search engine (it went live on msn.com today btw) is that it is similar to how google used to be in the good old days. Before they started counting specific link IP's and not giving credit for certain "link" neighborhoods.

I think eventually MSN will move towards this direction, but it is not something that you can write a program to do right off the bat. You have to modify the algo's over time. I think the new MSN is great too, it makes optimizing sites a lot easier and less complicated. Just get a bunch of links, it doesn't matter if they are all from the same IP, some good titles, internal linking, and you are good to go!

[PuReWebDev]

I just made a post about how well my site was ranking in the msn search engine for my keywords. It's pretty nice being able to show up in the top ten.

But my major question is, How long will it last? It's really great getting the extra traffic, but I know my site wasn't getting such great placement a few weeks ago. It's a miracle.


PuReWebDev

[jawn_tech]

It is definitely a nice surprise and congratulations -- enjoy it while it lasts (and I hope it lasts).

The new algo does seem to be the one to watch, as for now it somewhat behaves as a hybrid Google/Yahoo (but I also agree with the assertion made about that it's like old school Google).

What steps MSN takes in their algo will be interesting, but overall I do think they will be a real contender for the #2 spot, surpassing Yahoo.

IMO, this could happen before year's end.

[CAD]

I like the new MSN search. It is not because we have achieved great rankings, but I am tired of the content that Google is serving up for SERPs. I can't count the number of times I have found about.com listings or amazon.com listings or mega shopping site listings (Bizrate or shopping.com) for some of the items I have been looking for.

It is really frustrating and I find myself searching Yahoo or MSN more and more.

I really like the new Search Builder feature of the MSN search where you can opt to search for websites that are the most popular or have been updated recently.

In a side note to eeko who originally posted this thread, we rank #5 for website design on MSN, not #10.

[edhan]

We have seen signs of increasing search from MSN & Yahoo. Hope everyone has a fair share with these search engines as well.

Cheers!
Edward

[creative2004]

For highly competitive keyword “Web Design Company” we get no.1 in MSN and No.3 or No.4 for “Website Design”. I am still worried about google position and we are at page 4 for a quite long period. In Yahoo we are at No.11. Does google give preference to old site and less content?

[chiron]

IMHO, Google seems to have gone a bit soft for the geeks (like me) since they went public, and particularly after the odd night of 1/1/2005, when I noticed that about a dozen (legit) domains my firm had built, all with white-hat, quality content, finally got indexed... some of them after 9 months of begging and submitting and etc... then the next day or two they were "unindexed" and... then... indexed again... or some pieces of them... and now after roughly a month, a full index exists, though positions swung around from #1 to outside the top 100. Maybe I'm getting neural decay from monitor radiation or something, but it seemed like the New Year turned Google to the dark side, at least for my domains.

The worst to flip-flop around was the newest of the sites, http://www.veracitycredit.com, which I thought was the best-designed of the whole clutch, visually and so forth. The bad neighborhoods theory didn't seem to hold, though on the flip-side, backlinks were few... and they'd been indexed for 9-12 months prior to the relaunch that got indexed at the first of the year. Who knows about Google, but we're seeing good SEO creep in all the other top ones, Yahoo and now "alpha" MSN being particularly kind, for all the domains in question. I don't care how esoteric the search query is, #1 is #1, and proudly do we hold dibs on our four-word strings, heh.

Personally, I think Google seems to be a little too distracted by their desktop search and (rumored) new browser... in unrelated news, I did some image searching, which has always been spotty but used to be pretty sound, and 75% of the junk that was cached was no longer resident on the host site. Go Yahoo! (Still hard to type, this being from someone who abandoned Yahoo for Google fervently a few years ago...)

PS - Just me here, or is it always that freebie site you did over the weekend for your kid sister's friend's grandmother 3 months ago that comes back and shocks you with #1-5 listings for the industry standard term(s)?

[knotwork]

MSN is easy. Probably too easy. I am number one for "goddess" and for "asatru" and for "asatruar" and for "heathenry" and probably for others too, and on the first page of results for several related terms, not to mention combos of two or more of my chosen words.

But... a few days ago I was similarly number one for "religion", then POW, blown away, nowhere in the first 250 results. I suspect it might be due to my religion page making mention of Satanism and the Religious Reich in addition to a whole swath of somewhat more widely-respected religions.

I am not sure if some kind of censorship happened or what...

-MarkM-

[eeko]

Looking back at our websites that are popping up on msn and a personal website of mine which is at the top of google, yahoo and msn for it's particualar search, I must admit that it appears to all boil down to good solid planning of the site to gain good search results. Like everyone else I have been scouring in the web for every little tip in SEO that might give us the edge and have tried a lot of them. But I keep coming back to site design and structure. The most important work in SEO actually takes place before you hit that first key on your new site development. Of course inbound and outbound links and content are very important, but I think taking those two concepts a step further and planning where your links and fresh content will appear is very important. I used to think link pages were it. Not anymore.... Linking in and out from every page of the site is extremely important as is placing the right links with the right content.

We'll have to see what the future holds and what 2005 will bring in the world of SEO. I wonder what it will be like in 2015....

[jxw]

I'm with Mark M (knotwork). My fun site used to be in the top 5 on MSN for "restaurants with matchbooks," then with the new MSN, it is no longer found (except through a link from another site). It remains high in Google, Mamma, Jeeves, and Excite. Looks like some did well with the new MSN and some did not. Most of the postings are from those who did well. We are working on the problem but probably will not know how well we do for a month or so.

Jeff W
www.matchbookreview.com

[aln]

I'm not sure if it has to do with the language, but when doing a search for my keyword on MSN I'm getting junk results.

About 90% of the results are irrelevant for our keyphrase ("guardas de vidrio" which means "glass liners"). The only result for my site is 2nd place, but indirectly through a prweb article we posted. In contrast we have 1,2,3 on Google and 1,5,6,9 in Yahoo.

So up to now MSN sucks! Maybe it's overvaluing incoming links and not putting good content in the results. Our current ranking on Google and Yahoo is due to content and basic optimization, our only incoming link is from Prweb on which we post our Newsletter.

[jackson992]

That is impossible. Google is about incoming links not on page factors. That's why I like the new msn so much, because it's the exact opposite

[robinev]

Originally Posted by jackson992

Google is about incoming links not on page factors. That's why I like the new msn so much, because it's the exact opposite

That's not true, according to MSN Search:

The MSN Search ranking algorithm analyzes factors such as page contents, the number and quality of sites that link to your pages, and the relevance of your site’s content to keywords.

(my emphasis)
Both Google and (according to their guidelines) MSN use both on-page text and links in building a search report.

[freehits]

Originally Posted by robinev

That's not true,

Well as stated above we have #1 spots for 2 dozen searches of 1 Million + from sites with less than a month under their belts, and hardly any backlinks (20-30 tops)

rent to own - 25,000,000
charlotte homes - 1,200,000
homes in charlotte - 1,700,000

and an honarable mention for our site at#5 for superbowl tickets, which I never exchange a single link for outside of my IP range.

This is a small sample of 100's of big terms we landed all over page 1 for, and many of the sites were put up for yahoo and not linked to heavily at all. You can believe and repeat what you like, but we have put our finger on what it is that works, and overemphasis on links is not it.

i have seen it as an smarter version of yahoo's on page assessments with frequent updates and almost no indication of any link requirments.

So far I like the gui, i like the ads, i like the results...no problems here.

[mgillis]

The comments about the new MSN being like the old Google are pretty true in my experience.
I'm please with my search result on MSN, I've got 4th position on page 1 for my top three keywords.

Thing is, when I launched this site last March, I had those results on Google as well. About 6 weeks later, gone.... never to return. I've fought our way back to page 2 twice only to be knocked off again. Now my product shows on page 2 but through a partner link, not my own site.

Thing is, the Google results for these terms are really heavy on the duplication for the first 3-4 pages. The same companies and products again and again. I'm noticing this same thing more often in my daily searches - multiple hits on the same sites and fewer and fewer options.

MSN, for my terms anyway, don't have more than one hit per site in their first 3-4 pages which makes (IMO) for a better search experience from the user perspective but also from a Marketer's perspective.

A lot of the time I feel like I've been drowned out by the big boys with their big staffs and big budgets on Google. I am certainly hoping that MSN stays on track.

[freehits]

totally agreed.

It sems the last week every page 1 site now has double listings which equates to a 5 site page 1.

Also everytime I trade links with a site, the next day they are listed above me for my keywords just on the presence of that one link with my keywords.

I have a Steel company ahead of me for rent to own homes, and a New Zealand Real estate agent...the word Charlotte appears once on their entire sites, and its to link to me. We are all PR3....that is less than pleasing.

Bill Gates is cool. I want to bowl with him.

[Tyger]

I'm glad SOMEONE is having good results with the new MSN Search results. Our traffic had been improving steadily for months, and suddenly, on Feb. 2 it dropped to less than half of what it had been. Nothing had changed on the site at all. My theory is that we were ranked well in the old MSN search index, but are apparently either not in the index for the new MSN Search when it came online, or their new algorithms don't like our site much for some unknown reason(s). Since we run Google Adsense ads, I was wondering if MSN dropped us to penalize their competition. Has this happened to anyone else? And does anyone have a clue how to get relisted with them?

[freehits]

Originally Posted by Tyger

I was wondering if MSN dropped us to penalize their competition.

HAA...far fetched, but I would stand up and cheer. I need one of those big foam fingers with go msn on it.

[jackson992]

If MSN relied on links obviously we would rank similar to what we rank on google now. The fact that we are ranking for such competitve terms tells me they focus primarily on on page factors.

[gigigib]

I was shocked and thrilled that my site came up number #1 when I did a search in MSN for "fragrant Oils" and "Prayer Bottle".(Ok to be fair, there really aren't any other sites that I could find that have prayer bottles).

I couldn't believe it. I have done everything I know to do to get Google's attention, but sadly, I'm at #68 when doing a search for fragrant oils last time I checked.

[arius]

I agree that page factors play more role in new MSN but I think link factor is definetly there. All my sites benefited from new MSN because I have tons of quality incoming links, smartly diversified anchor texts around several keyword phrases that I also have in my content (and my Page Title).

My Google SERPs are not bad but they are nothing like MSN, I think it is because Google pays really not enough attention to content itself and despite what they argue give still too much importance to PR. Thats why in very competitive words I can be #1 in MSN but only #5-20 in Google. Few of my competitors get really high PR incoming links (without really too much incoming link page relevant content) and without even utilizing the keyword well on page still can get a better SERP in Google.

[freehits]

Originally Posted by arius

I agree that page factors play more role in new MSN but I think link factor is definetly there. All my sites benefited from new MSN because I have tons of quality incoming links,

So you also have sites with no links that did not benefit?

because you sites are well linked and did well doesnt make that the reason, or not the reason, I see no way to call that the connection from what you point out.

I have many a site with little to no linking on top of million plus searches. I have sites of all levels of linking and amounts of IBL's and all are doing the same more or less in MSN.

msn is very clearly close to entirely on page content at this point if not compleyely on page factors, and a few on page factors I feel are the real key. I have seen no indication of linking being important, or no reason why it should be treated as important. MSN is doing things from the ground up, so why imitate a flawed system.

[arius]

I don't agree.

I have also sites that have no or very minimal linking (with similar on page factors_ that did not do well in Google and they are not doing in MSN either.

If Hoptoo's argument was correct and no linking factor existed my low PR and minimal linking sites with similar page factors should have been doing well in MSN, but they are not.

[freehits]

I fyou have similar pages that are doing well and are using those to compare, then you may have a pattern there of your own.

But if you simply point our that low PR pages with good content arnt ranking that doesnt establish any pattern.

You are also implying that the on page fators of these non performing sites deserve to be top ranked on their on page present factors, but perhaps they are not good on page layouts for MSN, with all links aside.

If one person can show a page with no links and no PR that are #1 for a competitive term, that alone squashing much weight to linking.

"It takes countless testing to establish a theory, and only one exception to discredit it"
R Feynman.


Where my example for this is not without some links, it doesnt have many,

and we have seen dozens of "my site is number one after 3 weeks" posts on here.

Again while we havnt totally disregarded the linking concept as holding some weight albeit tiny, I see plenty of reason to know it is not much.

And those are exceptions as they would have no link history and no PR, but are ranking.

While i was testing a new site online yesterday it must have gotten spidered because it was page 1 of 400,000 results on MSN, with no links and online only 8 hours.

I still fail to see why MSN would want to mimic a poor concept like IBL's. Seeing how it hasnt done much for relevence, and has "reinvented" forum spam, referrer spam, automated link software, emails that some consider spam, and mindless linking rings.

But hey if you think this is still the solution to relevent results, that is your opinion.

[gregorym]

I noticed that incoming links are VERY important with MSN but if you do not have the expected content on your pages it may give you a hard time.
The size of the site is also extremely important since this engine emphasize internal links more than Google.

[freehits]

Originally Posted by gregorym

I noticed that incoming links are VERY important with MSN but if you do not have the expected content on your pages it may give you a hard time.
The size of the site is also extremely important since this engine emphasize internal links more than Google.

I agree with this, internal links are the we have found as well. Go Bills.


And to the above conversation, i have a set of domains close to identical, and clearly the one with some backlinks in place is getting treated much better then those that are not.

So to restate my thoughts above, I dont see it being a make or break factor as long as a certain minimum amount of links are in place.

[rovers]

I must admit that it appears to all boil down to good solid planning of the site to gain good search results

eeko!!!!!!!!!!!

That is the most common sense statement I have read in any forum this year... or any year for that matter. That's the reson you're doing so well!

As if you didn't already know :)

[daku]

I don't think link is highly important to rank well on msn. My website don't have much link but still rank well ( shown on page one ). Anyway, it's nice to see my site rank on page one compared to page three on google :)

[freehits]

Originally Posted by mgillis

Now my product shows on page 2 but through a partner link, not my own site.

I have this happening too everytime I exchange a link the site linking with the same PR jumps well ahead of me. The difference is that their domain is older than mine.

So in this way the "sandbox" is putting irrelevent sites ahead of relevent ones based on birthdate? plenty of real estate terms we are behind a song glyric site, a steel company.....etc they have the keywords 1 time on the whole site and its a link to me.

this is all taking place in the page 1-3 region of 500K results.

ps - We exchanged because they are regional.

[montytx]

I like the Engine but I have to question its integrity. I just like everyone else find it very easy to get in the top 10 there.

[RadarCat]

I am very happy with my keyword search results
using the new Microsoft search engine.

A lot of #1 and #2 rankings, just like I do with AllTheWeb, AltaVista and Yahoo!!

And I have an OS/2 Warp web site!!

Cool!!

[colinsmith]

I have found that alot of people have had brilliant results in MSN then it just dissapears. its strange

------------------

[freehits]

not so much dissappears as new sites getting indexed, i think people that vanished may have been on top then pushed down fast as the index is growing in size.

[iwish40]

I just downloaded the MSN TOOLBAR SEARCH BETA..
And I have to say I uninstalled it right afterwards and reinstalled the regular MSN TOOLBAR.
I didn't like at the bottom and I didn't like how it searchs thru everything.(yes, I know it was supposed to do that).
It's just 1 extra thing I don't need.