Strange Experience with MSN

[leesw]

I have a site that I'll leave unnamed for now that used to rank in the top 5 in MSN for two phrases I was going after.

Then, several months back and out of the blue, it was totally dropped from MSN results. It's ranks well in Google and Yahoo. I have done nothing blackhat. And my pages all have different meta titles and descriptions.

The only thing I could think of would be that I have incoming links from a lot of directories and I've read that MSN is not a big fan of that.

But MSN doesn't even list the site anymore. It's dropped it completely. I type in the URL and MSN doesn't even list it.

Any ideas why that could happen and what I could do to get back in?

Thanks

[bruwmac]

I assume you are referring to the singles site, as a site: search in MSN brings up zip.

A quick look at your site didn't yield any obvious reasons for MSN to drop you.

Have you tried asking them?

[timmathews.com]

Wow, Lee. That is strange. I too, assume you are referring to the realchristiansingles.com site.
Why don't you write the live team?

[incrediblehelp]

If it is realchristiansingles.com maybe it is not your website but the ones you link out to at the bottom of the page? Is that part of a network your in?

[bruwmac]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

If it is realchristiansingles.com maybe it is not your website but the ones you link out to at the bottom of the page? Is that part of a network your in?

Are you suggesting his/her site was dropped because MSN doesn't like a site that is being linked to?

[incrediblehelp]

I have no proof of this, but mini-networks are an OBVIOUS way to get your website demoted in all three search engines.

[Matteo]

MSN is my bugaboo. I am number one in Google for my major keyword/phrases (not the web design site) in the top ten of Yahoo but sliding along in the 50's on MSN I can't figure the durn thing out.

[Andilinks]

I have had a similar experience with MSN. Since the traffic was a tiny fraction of what I got from Google it hardly seemed worth following up. I though maybe it was because I was an AdSense publisher...

[therapists]

I have also had this with MSN for a client's website - Taps Online. I had over 25 first page listings for different keywords including Smeg Taps and Hansgrohe Taps both having first placed listings.

Now I have no rankings what-so-ever. I have contacted MSN Live Search and have had very poor answers to the tune of: "It's all automated" "Your website is still in the index" "We are in no way blocking the site". Their answers were all out of some training manual, in no way did anyone even look at the site and give me an answer.

It doesn't even find my site when typing in Taps Online and that's what the URL is!

I am not involved in any black hat SEO stuff, nor do I publish anything through adsense.

We charge the client per first page listing and although there wasn't much traffic coming from MSN, it affects our income!!

Can anyone offer any suggestions?

[Clint1]

Lee I noticed the same thing for many months. My homepage stopped showing up for ANY searches, it only showed up when I searched for the domain. It also never showed up for their site: command! No other pages seemed to be affected. But recently it's back showing up again 1st for the site: operator command and it's showing in searches again. But, MSN has trashed about FORTY of my webpages from the site: command!

Originally Posted by bruwmac

Are you suggesting his/her site was dropped because MSN doesn't like a site that is being linked to?

MSN personally told me that they will do this. Also, they'll penalize you for who links TO YOU! I was infuriated by it and gave them my "lecture" on it about not having any control whatsoever on who links to you, and mentioned "lawsuit" a few times, then they wrote back and said "...we don't see any problems with this with your site".

I suggest everyone check out the tool here and check all of your OBL's.
Bad Neighborhood - Link Exchange Tool
And also check out who's linking to you.

[Clint1]

Originally Posted by Matteo

MSN is my bugaboo. I am number one in Google for my major keyword/phrases (not the web design site) in the top ten of Yahoo but sliding along in the 50's on MSN. I can't figure the durn thing out.

MSN has had a "major hemorrhage" ever since this "Live Search" crap was unleashed. They've never been the same.

[TenTonJim]

Contact them. I had the same thing happen, contacted them and they explained they had updated their algo and would take a look at it... I explained it was all css/xhtml/ada compliant and that there was no blackhat going on. 2 weeks later it was back in their index. I think they are aware that there are problems with the "new and improved" Live Search algo...

[cjbx7]

My craft site was also totally dropped when MSN switched to Live.com. None of my pages are listed in their index.

How do you contact them?

[EliteAF]

Strange that it happened? Nooooo

I've spent the past 6 years trying to figure out how to get decent MSN listings. What I find is that when I list well on MSN, I am doing better than average on other engines. I have seen a high degree of correlation between better Yahoo scores and good MSN. But I have yet to find a consistent formula to control MSN listings - or stop from being randomly dropped. My Yahoo and Google Optimized pages never amount to much with MSN.

But keep working and you will magically reappear within a few months.

[Clint1]

Originally Posted by cjbx7

My craft site was also totally dropped when MSN switched to Live.com. None of my pages are listed in their index.

How do you contact them?

Initially I believe you have to contact them via their online form then you can reply to that email address. Because, that address* appears to change each time! I've tried emailing that address weeks later and it's no longer valid! At any rate, these are the addresses I have for them but I don't know which will work if any.
* SERCH.WEBM.NA.00.EN.SYK.MNL.TS.T01.S....microsoft.com
* SERCH.WNLV.NA.US.EN.SYK.MNL.TS.T02.S....microsoft.com
sisupport_us@bCentral.com
msupport@microsoft.com
msnbot@microsoft.com
v-waleli@microsoft.com

[qh4dotcom]

I had a site on MSN disappear and several months later it reappeared. Maybe your site will come back automatically. In the meantime, you should contact them.

[leesw]

Sorry I'm so late in responding. I've been busy with a new version of the site. I am not part of any link network. Those are all just sites that I exchanged links with. Mostly directories that had very high PR and incoming links and in order for me to get a link back they required a link from my homepage. Just from the traffic I get from the directories, it's worth it.

I did contact MSN but haven't heard back and it's been a few weeks.

Thanks very much for your suggestions.

[allfreechips]

I have had drastic issues with MSN ever since the change to live, I had terms in the top 5 all the time, now I dont even have my domain names in the top 5 yet they still have a small index of them..

[incrediblehelp]

I have had websites also totally disappear in MSN only to come back a week or two later. Code hiccup.

[Clint1]

Originally Posted by allfreechips

I have had drastic issues with MSN ever since the change to live, I had terms in the top 5 all the time, now I dont even have my domain names in the top 5 yet they still have a small index of them..

That's for damn sure. They've taken a huge step backwards with this "live" crap. Instead of trying to work with what they HAD that WAS working and gaining a lot of ground on G due to all of G's issues, they went and pulled the same stunt which alienated a lot of MSN users.

[Clint1]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

I have had websites also totally disappear in MSN only to come back a week or two later. Code hiccup.

That has happened to me as well. I've also had the homepage of my main site disappear from search results, and even have it disappear from a "site:" command while other pages were unaffected. Then it will show up again, then disappear again, then show up, etc etc etc. When it shows up, it's without the www prefix on the domain, and the other pages have it, and I've had the 301 redirect in place for years!