Search on company name in MSN turns up competitor!

MSN search engine

[djsstb]

I am trying to figure out how an MSN search on our company's name only turns up a local competitor as the first hit and does not find our site at all. We do not subscribe to pay per click or any other service from MSN. Our competitor pays a marketing company to build, host and promote its site and they do not know if that company pays MSN anything to promote their site. Our firm name is not included in the competitor's keywords or anywhere on their site. We don't have that problem using any other search engine. I tried to contact MSN, but they send back canned responses trying to sell me their promotion services. If anyone could explain how this happens, and maybe tell me how to fix it without paying MSN, I'd sure appreciate it!

Dana

[pageoneresults]

Hello djsstb, Welcome to WebmasterWorld!

Those first few results in MSN are Sponsored Listings and come from Overture. It sounds like your competitor is bidding on your company name as a keyword phrase.

<edit>Typo, I hate those things.

[edited by: pageoneresults at 2:24 am (utc) on Mar. 12, 2004]

[identity_00]

or he has more inbound links with your name in it.

[djsstb]

Can anyone tell me what the ballpark range is when bidding on keywords for MSN Overture?

[ptietze]

djsstb shared the company name with me by sticky.

I don't think listing for the competitor is a PPC sponsored listing from Overture. Those listings are clearly marked under a header "Sponsored Listings" and this was not the case in the MSN serps. It could be an Inktomi PFI listing, the listing also shows up in Position Tech's pure search (but not in Yahoo.) However, PFI submissions just allow submission by url and not by keyword, so I don't know why the competitor is showing up for djsstb's company name.

So the mystery continues?

[ptietze]

Is this an Inktomi linking penalty?