MSN and Meta Tags

**brian.mark** · #1 (**permalink**) 05-19-2005, 12:28 AM

I thought we were doing well on MSN before, but then our SEO firm made some meta tags. After a week or so, we're now ranking on MSN for some very competitive keywords that we've never had the guts to try to tackle. Even terms like power tools, which has some heavy hitters competing with us, we're top 10 now.

Has anyone else worked with meta keywords and description and seen such results?

Brian.

bhartzer · #2 (**permalink**) 05-23-2005, 01:04 PM

Chance are that it's not due to the meta tags. I would bet that it's simply due to the updating of the site--MSN loves sites that are updated on a regular basis.

webhost1 · #3 (**permalink**) 05-25-2005, 12:52 AM

Would this just be for the main page or any of the sites pages? What other content does msn look at?

SEOforGoogle · #4 (**permalink**) 05-26-2005, 08:37 AM

MSN seems to have a love affair with the meta tags right now, but as the se robot matures, I think we'll see less reliance on them.

so, congratulations on your success, enjoy it while you can!

wrmineo · #5 (**permalink**) 05-29-2005, 11:42 AM

First, MSN does rely on metas to some extent by their own admission. However, they look at your description tag and seem to ignore your keyword tags. You desc tag is compared to your content and ranked accordingly. Also important to MSN, like other engines, is site's pointing/linking to yours.

Also, a page need not be frequently updated to be liked by search engine, IMO. However, if you're arrogant enough to put in expires-after or revisit tags of short duration without updating, I think that could do damage.

I launched Tax Help Site in the fall. To be honest, it was with the sole, hopeful intention that some CPA or lawyer would want to buy it. The pages haven't been updated for months, but ranks at the top (in MSN, Yahoo, AltaVista, others sans Google) for the intended keywords still today. Many of my pages on FreshDames also rank well out of millions of results without frequent updates. "female celebrity sites" has 1.1 MILLION results in MSN; I'm consistently top 5, as just one example.

Finally, if my opinion is worth anything to anyone but me ... other key factors for MSN:

Title
Content
URL structure (short, relevant and static)
File Size (fast loading is better!!)
Links (internal and external / sitemap is a big help)

Good luck and Happy Ranking!