MSN Search - Relevance. Where is it?

[BigUns]

I have read, with some fascination, many of the postings in recent weeks in regard to the new MSN search. These postings seem dominated by those who really like the MSN SERPS. I disagree. I am reminded of the universal hoopla and fanfare that greeted Netscape 6 when it debuted - oh what a wonderful standards compliant browser Netscape 6 is, and Internet Explorer is terrible blah blah. Actually, Netscape 6 su*ked. And, in a similar fashion, MSN search su*ks. Many of the searches I do in Google or Yahoo with good results are gibberish when done in MSN.
Among my experiments are 'geographical' type searches(example): Keyword1 Keyword2 western PA

In one search, only one of the top ten results were in western Pennsylvania - 9 of the 10 were in: western Virginia, western Michigan, and several in western Australia.(!) Google is very good at this type of search; Yahoo is excellent; MSN falls flat. In order to get meaningful results in MSN, you actually have to put quotes around "western pa" - then the results are much better. I have also noticed that in other searches MSN gets much better with portions of the search enclosed in quotes - something I virtually never do in Google or Yahoo - and the typical searcher won't either. I have concluded, on the basis of a variety of searches (mostly 4 word), that MSN often serves up random gibberish because apparently:

(1) Word Proximity means nothing to MSN
(2) Titles mean almost nothing to MSN

It would be interesting to know if others have their own observations in regard to (1)Word Proximity and (2)Titles - and the types of searches that seem to support or refute these assertions. Some of you who are pleased with MSN may be using less keywords or 2 keywords with a strong Inherent proximity bias - (example: Boston MA)- which perhaps explains why those results may be better / more relevant.

I have no vested financial interest in how good or how bad MSN search is or isn't. I don't make money from any website and I have no $$ bias relating to SERPs. I use what works, and for the last 5 years, what works is Google - although Yahoo is becoming my favorite SE for many searches - something I would have regarded as heresy six months ago - but that's a different subject. I don't believe that MSN Search is bad - I believe it is Breathtakingly Bad. I do hope it gets better. Feb 1 2005

(On a related matter, has anyone else seen MSN indexing both www.MySite.com AND www.MySite.com/index.html. I have - and this will cause SERP problems ...)

[HenryUK]

Thanks for the response and suggestion, interesting stuff. All our pages I'm talking about have distinct META description tags however, so I think we can rule that out, at least as far as my site is concerned.

My best theory is still the depth thing, but I'm leaning toward the possibility that patience may be the key... that the pages will be indexed eventually and will find their suitable position as MSN make tweaks to their system. I'm not taking any radical steps while the site does so well on G...

[BigUns]

houseofsecrets:

I responded to your post several hours after you posted; I didn't visit the forums for about 8 hours during which time the Thread Title Police changed the title (OK by me); after I located the thread I then discovered that my most recent post was no longer there. I have no idea where in web space it went, perhaps a forum moderator who reads this can locate it. The thrust of the post was that if I did a search on Word1 Word2 eastern MA, I have a reasonable expectation that the top results in the SERPs will be dominated by pages about Word1 and Word2 in eastern Massachusetts. That's what Google and Yahoo generally serve up. It is not reasonable for a SE to serve up top 10 stuff like a blog talking about someone's mother Ma baking cookies before she gets on a Eastern airlines flight later today; and nowhere, and I do mean nowhere on the page is the phrase eastern MA. Nowhere. That's the kind of stuff MSN was serving up - no word proximity. Let's be clear here - this example has absolutely nothing to do with 'geolocation' - a dumb as a rock SE that uses word proximity can serve up rational results - a dumb as a rock SE that doesn't use word proximity doesn't (in that example). That was the reality of MSN search prior to and when I first posted Feb 1, and as I have indicated since, MSN seems to have changed for the better.

This issue of word proximity is/ was just one of multiple problems MSN has - another is the general subject of "geolocation" and all the facets (and definitions) thereof, from misguided assumptions about TLDs and associated SERPs; assumptions about ISP locations (example-there are still over 20 million AOL members in US - how many of those, at least those on a dial-up, get a default local search for Virginia where AOL is headquarted? I know of several and it could be generic); the fact that when I click the MSN link for "are you looking for blah near City,StateAbbr" the results are often better if I don't take the bait; all the way down to the somewhat comical(and harmless) question posed if you do a search for Andrew Jackson as noted in another thread.

And then there's the double indexing of domain root pages, www.Mysite.com and www.MySite.com/index.html etc; the fact that pages are in the MSN index in the sense of showing up on a site:www.MySite.com query, but in reality never appear in the SERPs and there's more - yes I know MSN isn't unique in having these types of problems - it just has too many of them.

Those are a lot of problems to fix. I believe MSN Search was still a beta product when it was 'released'. And I think it is inevitable that many of those touting how great MSN search was prior to Feb 1 will be swept up in tidal waves of MSN change similar in magnitude to the Google tsunami swamping some folks over in the Google forums right now. All (or at least most) of the above are items that MSN will presumably resolve in the days/weeks/months ahead.

My biggest concern, however, has nothing to do with the above nitty-gritty - Microsoft has lots of bright people. What I really fear is an evolution or devolution to a dumbed-down MSN search interface - I fear a Microsoft Word type "Clippy" offering to help me; I fear a Windows XP type Search dog wagging its tail and asking me stupid questions like "Where would you like to surf today?".
These are rational fears and you should have them too....

HenryUk:

OK - and I agree 100% as regards patience; and Google be very good to me too.