Article printed from SiteProNews: http://www.sitepronews.com
  HTML version available at: http://www.sitepronews.com/archives.html

  
  
  
MSN(beta) is Now Live
By Jim Hedger, StepForth News Editor,
StepForth Placement Inc., January 20, 2005

MSN has removed the beta-wrap from its proprietary search engine
and is now showing self-generated results at MSN.Com. Beta
results had started bleeding into MSN listings over the past
three weeks but since Sunday (Jan 16), the .COM (US / Global)
version of MSN has consistently mirrored those found at
MSN(beta). Regional versions of MSN continue to display Inktomi
(Yahoo owned) / Regional partner generated results (Jan19, 05).

At this time two years ago, Google was the only major search
database, feeding search results to Yahoo and eventually by
extension to MSN. Around this time last year, Yahoo began to
break away from Google by amalgamating data from its
acquisitions of Overture, AlltheWeb, AltaVista and Inktomi into
a monster database built on the dbase they bought from FAST.
This was a huge project that resulted in a database almost as
large as Google's. When Yahoo stopped using Google generated
results, MSN stopped showing them as well. At the same time, a
new spider named MSNbot was making its presence known, appearing
in our clients' server-logs with amazing frequency.

The introduction of an MSN search engine makes the business
world of search a lot more interesting and might help open the
door for other smaller firms such as Lycos and Ask Jeeves to
gain a toehold against Google. However MSN changes the business
of search, it will help improve on the science of it by
innovation rather than invention.

The engineers at MSN have had the luxury of watching everyone
else invent dozens of wheels. They have had the time to see what
works well and what makes money. They have watched great ideas
that should have succeeded fall to failure and not so great
ideas flourish until the market determined their death. Having
created much of the environment themselves, they also know the
histories of the web and appear to have learned when to act and
when to lay-low.

The search engine that they have produced takes factors that
worked well for others and combined them to make what could
become a very popular search tool.

Like Google, MSN's spider finds new sites by following links
directed to those sites. MSNbot is active all the time. So
active in fact that about five weeks ago a few webmasters
reported so many visits their servers crashed. MSN revisits
sites very frequently. Over the past year, MSN has compiled a
5-Billion site database.

Once a site is in the database, MSN looks at the number of links
directed to that site. There is no hard data on the role topical
relevancy plays in how MSN determines links, however it is
assumed by most that anchor text plays a major role. (Anchor
text did factor in our initial tests with the beta version of
the engine)

Next, MSN looks at the content of the site. This is where much
of the ranking determination is made. Sites with great text and
clear internal link-paths are ranking very well with MSN. Of our
entire client base, only one site with excellent text and
internal linking lost a top placement at MSN when the new
version was introduced. Strong, keyword enriched titles and body
texts continue to provide strong placements. We are fairly
certain that the anchor text of internal links can influence
placements as well.

Size matters with MSN as larger sites with long-term content
appear to be doing very well under more generic keyword
searches. Content rich news and information sites and large
corporate sites should be able to leverage their size and
content-scope into high placements. The size and content-scope
factor should also work well with large e-commerce sites,
provided a very clear mapping technique makes the site as easy
to access as possible for MSNbot.

There is a simple experiment that folks should run every time a
new search engine is introduced or a new algorithm is applied.
Open three browser windows (or click on the following links)
and cue up MSN.com, Google.com, and Yahoo.com :

(http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?FORM=MSNH&q=artificial%20turf),
(http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=artificial%2Bturf),
(http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=artificial%2Bturf&fr=FP-tab-web-t&toggle=1&ei=UTF-8). 


Enter a keyword phrase important to your business or interests.
For this example, I will use one I am familiar with, "Artificial
Turf".

Look for similarities between what you know works at Google and
Yahoo and you can learn what works well at MSN. The Field Turf
website ranks #1 at each of the Big3 under the phrase
"artificial turf". The index page itself is dynamically
generated and does not always present the same text information
limiting the effectiveness of seo-copyrighting and keyword
densities. There are several remaining areas on the site SEO
work could be applied and a number of off-site factors that
collectively contribute to the site's top placements. Based on
this simple test, we can determine the following.

A website that has a large number of incoming links will get
noticed and spidered a number of times. Google recognizes 131
unique domains linking to the Field Turf website. Yahoo notes
over 1000. MSN sees far more, weighing in above 1500. Next, note
the "quality" of incoming links. Google is taking a very refined
approach to contextual-quality while Yahoo and MSN seem more
interested in the number of links.

Titles make a big difference at all three and are an important
area to work on when doing basic SEO for MSN. MSN also seems to
be able to read text found in drop-down menus such as the ones
on the right hand side of the Field Turf index page.

Another important factor in improving and retaining rankings is
updating the site. MSN states on its "How MSN Search Works" page
that pages that are active will be spidered more frequently and
achieve stronger rankings.

The business of search has changed radically over the past four
months, working through a scenario that has been building for
about two years. MSN going live with their own search engine is
huge news with as many unknown implications as known ones. Its
presence will challenge many basic assumptions about SEO and
will play a large hand in determining the future of the search
industry itself. The greatest general change is the burst of
corporate diversity and identity in the search marketplace. A
range of new products and services has been introduced by every
search tool from the Big3 to the dozen or so smaller but notable
search firms. Google is buying ad-space and fiber optics. Yahoo
is reporting massive earnings as it pushes into the Chinese
market, and MSN is suddenly in the house, so to speak. The
precursors of change are written on the wall and MSN is betting
much of that change will be found between the walls of your
home.

More on MSN very soon.

================================================================
Jim Hedger is a writer, speaker and search engine marketing
expert based in Victoria BC. Jim works with a limited group of
clients and provides consultancy services to StepForth Search
Engine Placement (http://www.stepforth.com). He has worked as
an SEO for over 5 years and welcomes the opportunity to share
his experience through interviews, articles and speaking
engagements. Other articles by Jim Hedger can be found at
http://news.stepforth.com
================================================================

Copyright © 2005 Jayde Online, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.

SiteProNews is a registered service mark of Jayde Online, Inc.