MSN UK - Why So Different?

[SuzziJ]

Here is a question that I have never known that the answer to and if anyone has any thoughts whatsoever I would greatly appreciate it!

MSN.co.uk seems to rank sites completely differently than say MSN.com or Hotbot.co.uk. Let me give you an example;

Have a .co.uk client that wants to be near the top for "pet supplies" yep, ok. Well no problem getting up there in MSN.com, Hotbot.com (Inktomi) and of course Hotbot.co.uk, which is identical to the pure Inktomi results. So what is the difference with MSN.co.uk, what should I be looking for here in terms of differences to the Ink' listing search engines.

Cheers guys.

[Dayo_UK]

It is hard to get to the top of MSN UK and Com through a Search Engine listing (Eg Inktomi that MSN uses) because you have to wade through sponsered listing then directory listings from looksmart.

That could be your problem - cant see why com would be different from uk

[SuzziJ]

Thanks, but to clarify, take out the sponsored results and directory results from the equation. Concentrate just on the Ink results that are displayed in both .com and .co.uk. There is obviously some algorithm difference between the 2. A UK site might rank first page (Ink results) in msn.com but in msn.co.uk nowhere to be seen. Got to say ive always optimised stuff for Ink as a whole and never concentrated on msn.co.uk, but im gonna have to start going for this engine alone as well. There is def. a difference but I just have no idea what...

Would give you an example but MSN.co.uk is currently displaying beta search results so its identical to .com but when its not in beta mode it is soo different.