RichTC - 10:56 pm on Sep 18, 2006 (gmt 0)

I gave msndude a two string example of a popular UK search where the user needs UK results.

Currently the serps for this search term return not one authority site in the top 20 and are absolutely dire. I stress this is a popular two string search term. Results were:-

result 1 = www.keywordsdomain.com
result 2 = sub-domain spam
result 3+4 a USA non relevent site
result 5 = sub-domain australian site
result 6 = non relevent Australian .gov site
result 7 = Thin content Junk site
result 8 = sub-domain non relevent
result 9 = sub-domain non relevent (not even close)
result 10 = sub-domain non relevent
result 11 = WOW 1st result thats on topic/relevent Amazing! but it is the subdomain of the main site thats relevent!
result 12 = Repeat of 3+4 only different sub domain page
result 13 = weak affiliate site with some content 2/10 but is a little relevent to the search string and more relevent that 1-10 are.
result 14 = spam junk mirror site sub-domain of 2
result 15 = ok site, on topic not authority but at least on topic
result 16+17 = ok site, weak content but you could call it a match
result 18+19 = Not bad, a leading well known site.
reslt 20 = junk

So on a two string they are about 5% relevent for this term. Try a three/four or five string in this sector and the results are utter cr@p. Unless the keyword is in the domain you can forget it. Google meanwhile are about 80% spot on for this as a UK search.

msn are a standing joke in our office everyone i talk to has virtualy written them off as just playing at search and no one is even likely to change from using google search due to the results being so bad. If i ask a member of staff if they have used msn search recently they laugh!, im not joking!

As for cleaning up spam and junk from its index i can knock a spammy site together with my team and have it rank 1 in msn for almost any search term!. If i can do it so can millions of others hence why the rsults are so bad and frankly the spam hasnt started to hit them yet fully due to the fact that their reach is so poor that most spamming teams dont have msn on the radar yet.

If msn increase their reach some how thats when the fun will start, but if they cant get search right at this stage they are going struggle like hell in the future imo.

Best policy i think is to check again in another six months