MSN Positioning with Inktomi PFI

Msn

[rakkyd]

I have spent some time reading these boards and doing as much home work on SEO. As a result my keywords for Google get me 11th, for Yahoo 10th but for MSN I get a lowly 25th.

When searching my "keyword" in MSN it appears three times in my title and twice in the description (more than higher placed pages). What am I missing. Do backward links count on MSN or placement of text on the submitted page to INK.
In my H1 and H2 tags I have the keyword about 5 times.

Very frustrating.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
Cheers
Ray

[yowza]

I'll try to bump you up here.

I think it could have to do with overoptimization. I wouldn't have my keyword repeated that many times, especially in the title.

Any other ideas?

[percentages]

>Do backward links count on MSN or placement of text on the submitted page to INK.

Backward links are critical to Inktomi.

One question I have is how are you counting the 25th position. MSN in the US is still showing Looksmart results (hopefully only until 1/15/04), have you counted these or not?

If you are 25th for "web pages" then it is most likely simply a case of needing more backwards links. Don't worry too much about the <h1> <h2> tags for Ink, it doesn't care a great deal. Make sure you have a keywords meta tag though. Don't worry about over optimization, Ink doesn't care. It loves backwards links and anchor text though.....like Google in 2001/2002.

Oh, and did I say Ink loves backlinks and anchor text ;)

[panic]

Oh, and did I say Ink loves backlinks and anchor text ;)

You can say that again :P

[rakkyd]

Thanks for the feedback. One other question as a result of the replies. If backward links are important, what happens if you have links from other web sites that are not registered with INK/Msn . Does MSN just ignore these and therefore it is only worth reciprocal linking to other registered sites on INK/Msn

Cheers
Rakky

[panic]

what happens if you have links from other web sites that are not registered with INK/Msn .

If by that, you mean sites that are not in the Inktomi database, it depends. If the site simply has never been crawled by Inktomi, then no, it doesn't affect you. However, if the site had an editorial action against it and was dropped from Inktomi for violating the content guidelines (keyword stuffing, doorway pages, etc), then a link from that page could hurt you.

[howiejs]

any other dips for optimizing for INK?

Also if you submit one page (PFI) should it be your site map? will INK crawl the links off a submitted PFI page?

[takagi]

>> Also if you submit one page (PFI) should it be your site map? will INK crawl the links off a submitted PFI page?

Pricing and Availability

Search Submit is available exclusively through the Inktomi authorized resellers listed below. Pricing is per-URL on an annual basis, with discounts usually offered for submitting multiple pages.

Source: Inktomi's Search Submit - Smaller Sites [inktomi.com]

So submitting only the site map won't help you.