MSN algo update Options

[NorthStar]

Looks like some tweaks to the algo and an update. Anyone seeing any major changes. So far its been positive for all my clients.

[DianeV]

I'm seeing about the same thing. Glad to hear you're getting positive results, though. :-)

[Respree]

I'm liking the changes. Turning up #1 (out of 1 million) this morning on one my primary keyphrases. :wink:

[pinkfluffybunny]

It's the start of the google MSN wars. MSN is trying to ensure people find what they are looking for as opposed to the seo scammers.

Respree - drop a video introduction or video welcome message into your site and watch what happens (you'll be plesantly surprised)

[cre8pc]

MSN is trying to ensure people find what they are looking for as opposed to the seo scammers.

You've mentioned this elsewhere in the forums. I was wondering if this is factual or your intrepretation of MSN?

From what I can tell, all search engines would claim to be fighting SEO spam (whether or not they succeed is a whole 'nother matter of course) and all claim to present the "what people are looking for, the way they're searching for it" kind of message.

I don't search for video myself. If video is what people want to look for, I'm unaware of it (haven't seen the stats to back it up). It won't do much for the seeing or hearing impaired, for example. What's the importance for video?

[pinkfluffybunny]

The crew here has all noticed the site rankings lately (keying in on title, keyword/ body ratio and interior links), So I guess you could say it's our interpretation after watching some of the SE spam sites take a hit and the actual business sites move up. We think it's headed that way and started taking steps a couple of weeks ago to get with it.

I just read the interview with Eytan Seidman and I wasn't surprised at all by him saying, "In general MSN wants to connect consumers to the people and information that is important to them, Search and our other properties are means to that end. "

We don't have insider info, simply analyse comparisons; but that's the thoughts around the water cooler after watching the stats and MSN annoucing they are intent on being #1 in the search engine business.

MS has always catered to business, and I don't see Billy Boy changing a winning strat. (stats from neilson are saying 75% of the online household goods purchases are from women using MSN and Google seems to be the news and media network for men).

We have been watching pages with embedded media for a while (since the annoucement of video searches starting up) and within the last month the position changes have been dramatic. We have updated all our wm with keywords in title and linked files to see if it has any effect also.

We have noticed dramatic improvement of the placement of video pages - listed prominately under the number ones as a sub-link (there was no content on many of the windows media embedded pages and little optimization). We are also testing asx files to see what's going on there.

[Michael_Martinez]

Wow. This is impressive.

I've had pretty good rankings on MSN for many phrases, but now I am showing up all over the place.

Looks like all the old on-page tactics that worked for Google will now work for MSN. I wonder what Google is going to do about this.

[Tim]

Wow! Great stuff.

I must say congratulations to our member, Travis, who comes up first for a search on "web design"! (without the quotes)

<added>Actually, the results are probably localised, but still, it's a great position</added>

[cre8pc]

Heh

I just read this week's Newsweek magazine, which has a section on the next Internet technology boon in the USA, and there's a section devoted to Google (of course).

I thought of this thread when I saw it stated tht 70% of Google's attention is on making improvements to their search engine (the other 30% is for their other toys), and how they frequently weed out spam sites.

I've been liking MSN's SERPS for awhile...with tracking eagle eyes like Pink's, word will spread and soon Google won't be the only search engine we ever torture ourselves about.

Now we have two. With Yahoo! and AskJeeves chasing the carrot.

[cre8pc]

Just found this...

Google and Video submissions

[travis]

Thanks Tim,

I did not know that.

On Google, I would be Page 8.1 billion

Obviously, the results are very localised so the search terms in Australia I believe are doing this.

If you type Web Design, you are really typing Web Design Canberra.

If I type Web Design, I am really typing Web Design Perth.

Its not that simple, but there are some very strong local results flowing through.

When you type a search term and click submit, then MSN records your IP address and matches results which are preferentially closer to your geographical location.

How does it do that ? Well, it either has

(i) a premade index of your location already or
(ii) it uses the server IP Address of your domain or :
(iii) it uses a median of IP Addresses by analysing all of your backinks ( and their IP Address ) to determine an approximate location.

This makes sense, because most businesses get backlinks from people they know in a similar geographical region. 90% of my backlinks are from Perth and Sydney.

Anyway, the reason I think that we (all of us) dont score as well on Google is that the majority of our backlinks (clients and customer backlinks to us) are on the same server, with a similar IP address.

Having backlinks from sites on the same server in MSN just re-inforces your geographical location

Having backlinks from sites on the same server in Google is virtually useless as they see it as spammy, and decrease the normal PR linkage effect.

Hence every web designer with mulitple sites on the same box is running around in love (with MSN) which is what is happening.

Does anyone else experience this effect ?

Ranking beautifully on MSN, but Page 2-3 on Google.

Maybe I am way off, but its worth looking into.

[DianeV]

Interesting. But here in Los Angeles, I'm seeing UK, U.S. and a lot of the big .com sites.

[3rdeye5]

While a forerunner of my site a couple of years ago did better in MSN than in Google, my current site isn't doing well in MSN at all. It's a slightly commercial information site, and it's English language on a Dutch server.

I guess that according to MSN, globally oriented = bad.

I don't see it that way, of course. :roll:


Ewald

[Michael_Martinez]

Anyway, the reason I think that we (all of us) dont score as well on Google is that the majority of our backlinks (clients and customer backlinks to us) are on the same server, with a similar IP address.

Although many people in the SEO community like to mention LocalRank (which is the patented algorithm that throws out similar IP addresses), there has been scant evidence that Google actually uses it. LocalRank is intended to order results from within 1,000 documents -- or the maximum results it will actually show to a surfer.

Many large content sites have successfully boosted their own main page's importance in Google through site-wide links (something else which has frightened some people in the SEO world).

The bottom line is that Google has not historically been throwing links on the basis of their IP addresses or whether they are part of site-wide linking practices. What Google is doing now is anyone's guess, but "now" really only started in early February, and it underwent a substantial modification in mid-March.

[travis]

Michael,

Well someone is telling fibs.

What you thought last year was important may have disappeared out the window this year. SEO is not an exact science in my experience.

I would be interested to get your opinion on the following information.

Allergic wrote on his homepage/blog :

Monday, March 28, 2005

Who are your neighbors who backlink you ?

A new tool

http://www.webuildpages.com/cclass/index.php

has been released by WeBuildPages to show you who are backlink you and if thoses backlinks are in the same class C of IP addresses.
When a search engine see links coming from the same class C address (200.152.163.110 the first 3 octets of a IP address) to your site, it assume that class are owned by the same person or company and decreased the importance of thoses links.

A really great tool who will figure in my

http://pages.infinit.net/satchmo/pole/seo-...box-dxhtml.html

[Tim]

If you type Web Design, you are really typing Web Design Canberra.

If I type Web Design, I am really typing Web Design Perth.

Yep, which is why I was congratulating you on getting the top position for "web design" in Canberra . If you're getting it here, you're likely getting it in other places in Australia as well, and if the public are using MSN it should bring you a nice amount of business. However, a search for "web design canberra" brings me up first, like it does on Google.

Just out of interest, where abouts is your server located? Mine is here in Canberra.

[travis]

Tim,

My server is in Perth.

You dont get a lot more phone calls from potential customers from ranking top of MSN yet. I can only see "Web Design Perth" as number 1 Page 1 where I am.

The word "web design" itself finds us on Page 7 on MSN.

(Other cities where we found it to be ultracompetitive were Denver, Boston, Chicago, London, Toronto and Melbourne.)

You do get a lot more email enquiries, 90% of which are not useful to gaining more business, but some are interesting.

We get a lot more emails from people trying to sell us their websites to us for $10,000.

We got a lot more emails from people wanting to work for us, which I must say, is heartwarming.

We just had our form written out just then from a woman from a web design company in New Jersey USA wanting to have a symbiotic relationship.

I said my wife would not be comfortable with that, so I had to pass on that one.

But its all good, around 1/10 enquiries made on our website are genuine business enquiries, and then I have to convert those to customers.

DianeV is front page for "Web Design Los Angeles", so maybe she could shed some light on the benefits, if any, of ranking on the front page for such a large term on Google.

That one must be a huge boost on traffic.