Microsoft pouncing while Google is vulnerable ?

[uk2usa]

I posted a while back about how search pages from directories were appearing high on the lists of results for certain keywords where my site has disappeared since the Google filters were added.

This has now apparently been cleaned up by Google (do they read this forum ?) and the directory pages do not show up in search results as they once did.

However, my site is still completely absent from the searches on certain keywords where it used to come well up the list of results. My site is not spam and a large number of the results a searcher would pull up now on Google for these keywords are no longer relevant or are certainly less relevant then my site.

To my surprise, following a brief drop, page hits have not been effected at all by this change. I used to get the majority of my page hits from Google but now I am getting at least an equivalent number from MSN search.

Have MSN targeted the search results Google has filtered and stolen a march on them in relevancy ?

[uk2usa]

A quick update to my earlier post.

I think I misread what was going on before. My page hits are climbing since Christmas and as before they are not from Google (where during 2003 most of my hits came from).

However, its not just MSN hits I'm getting but hits from many other search engines and directories too. Whereas before I wondered if MSN had changed deliberately, I now dont think these other sources of traffic can have all changed. I think its the behaviour of users that has changed who are now looking elswhere to find the sites that they want.

[ronniethedodger]

It is funny that you would mention MSN. I too noticed some changes going on over there. And those changes suggest that something is indeed shaking up over there.

A couple of months ago...MSN if it listed my site at all, it would only be my Home page. Now I have sub-pages showing up more consistantly. In fact, for one search term...I have three pages listed in their top 10 non-sponsored results. At one checking, I had four pages listed once.

It is obvious that MSN is supplementing their results from another source or sources and the results they are displaying sometime overlap, it is almost like they seem to be duplicated in some ways.

As for any trend of search referrals shifting from one to the other, I see no evidence in that yet. It is pretty much the same....50% Google and 50% Yahoo/MSN.

If you are noticing an upswing on MSN yourself, one question...have you recently done a paid submission to some crawlers like Ask.com, FAST, Inktomi, etc. This would account for a big swing in your MSN results.

The December trend you mentioned, I would give it some time to get back to normal. One thing I have noticed leading up to Christmas and the day after, was a large drop (almost non-existant) in traffic. Most folks are too busy at this time of year to be piddling around on the Internet...least-wise if they are it is probably for other reasons solely like e-mail, checking weather conditions for their trips, and the like.

The directories you mentioned, I saw also in my area and sometimes showed ahead of my site too. Some are still there, but lower....but a really big one is now gone. My search terms vary and have various results...but on the whole they are stable and not much change.

[uk2usa]

Ron,

I have not done any paid submission to the crawlers you mention.

Having started off being worried by some of my search terms bombing in Gooogle, I'm now very happy with the shift in the source of my referrals to multiple sources rather than mainly Google. I guess it has to be a more stable supply. I'm just puzzled by this shift. I'll keep scanning the logs and looking for trends.

[greeneagle]

uk2usa,

I have also been receiving more referrals from MSNsearch lately. The MSNbot does not currently feed MSNsearch. You may find that correspondingly, as I have, that the WISENutbot (looksmart) has been very active crawling lately. Hitting my site about as much as the GOOGLEbot. Looksmart directly feeds MSN.

Ken