Massive difference between Google and MSN -- WHY?

[Quantam Goose]

I have done most of the normal SEO (and some not so normal) adjustments to my primary-related content sites. (No tricks - just good content, structure, links, etc.). I do "ok" on google organic results. Could be better. (I always supplement organic with adwords).

I "OWN" MSNSEARCH. In the keywords pairs (that are of any significance to me) I end up in the number 1,2,3,4 and so on position organically on a lot of keyword pairs.

How can those two indexing and ranking schemes be wildly different. My guess is that google is being gamed to death. Any ideas?

[BigDave]

Leaning into your cash cow isn't a "theory", its called business 101,

Yeah, it's a good thing that google went beyond that beginning class and realized that messing with their search results would cause them to go the way of AV.

They are leaning into their cash cow, that is true, by putting ads along side their search. They are taking care of their cash cow for the long term instead of killing it for the quick buck.

The search provides the eyes, that is all they need to lean on. They don't need to mess with the SERPs to sell more ads, most every commercial search result is just about sold out at the top rate that the market will bear.

That is business 401.

[steveb]

You can't teach perpetual small business types how to think like a major business. All the posts we have seen over the years ranting that Google was going to destroy its core business to boost its ad revenues have been from people who would never have a big business because they don't look at the big picture of a big business.

[paulanthony]

Part of the problem I feel is the interface that MSN chooses to use.

www.msn.co.uk - Always has been a portal type site News Channels etc...

www.google.co.uk - Always has been a clean interface providing JUST what it does - search. If you want news you look for it - it isn't thrown at you if you dont want it. The other advantage is the speed of load - consider your modem users, who will set google to their homepage purely cause its faster to load.

MS decided to try and address it with the domain

[search.msn.co.uk...] - which is cleaner however users wont move to a subdomain - especially after after the msn domain (brand) has been built up over years. They haven't had the balls to get rid of all that content and strip it down to the bare bones.

We are also all surmising about how people will move to MSN over google because of a few updates "gone wrong" - chances are we are the only ones that noticed. The average Joe still has brand loyalty to google.

[concepthue]

I don't know, there seems to be a 50/50 msn vs. google.

Honestly, I don't see as much spam on MSN.
Personally I feel MSN is currently doing a better job than Google.

Google is spending too much time making VoIP and playing with satellite imagery. They are losing sight of what put them on the map....their simple, easy to use, quick, and relevant search engine.

They should have NEVER done the sandbox thing. I think everyone here can pretty much agree that if Google was quicker with the indexing and ranking...it would without a doubt be on top of the world.

But yes, there are massive differences between MSN and Google. My two cents, the one major "massive" difference is the speed at which the engines work at.

Google is rich yes, but Gates is richer me thinks.
(though I'm still PO'd I didn't invest when Google went public)

[security56]

steveb with all your respect i don't think you looking at the big picture which is, yes in the past people did rant about google and complain about google, but back them I daupt any one started to bring up the idea that msn search for example has become better. usually the complains were about google only.

And we dont look at the big picture and can make sucess of our pages well me for instance came from 50 uniques a day to 2000 in matter of months thanks to webmasterworld ofcourse, and now i don't even have to work for no one but my self and the check is getting bigger and bigger so for you to say people that rant can't see the big picture maybe you the blind one and the big picture is if google keeps going the ways its going don,t be suprise if around the corner google will be looking up msn.

PS: firefox was made popular by webmaster thats how i found out about it and most of the people I know that are very internet sabby we came pass a site that had a logo of firefox and the webmaster recomended it thats why we got into it, not big site I must say so who ever argue about that don't really understand the internet world :)

[europeforvisitors]

Google is spending too much time making VoIP and playing with satellite imagery. They are losing sight of what put them on the map....their simple, easy to use, quick, and relevant search engine.

You could just as easily argue that MSN is too busy running a portal site, offering instant messaging, promoting SLATE and Encarta, and doing all the other things that MSN does. But that would be just as silly as suggesting that "making VoIP and playing with satellite imagery" takes resources away from Google Search in a company whose payroll and facilities continue to grow.

[steveb]

Since the first day Yahoo and MSN started their search engines spammers were falling out of trees talking about how they were going to overtake Google. Big snore, nothing new here.

Google is far more secure than it ever has been, with its market share growing and its competitors weak (Yahoo) or pathetic (MSN). Someone dropped a hand grenade into the guts of Google and they still manage to be light years ahead of the competition. Their only worry currently is where to put all the money.

[colin_h]

I kind of agree with Steveb. When people get hit by a google slump they want to strike back. It doesn't seem enough to say that we're angry that google has dropped us and that we're in trouble. We think that, somewhere behind the scenes at WebmasterWorld, there may be google influences listening to our complaints and we just need to hit the right note and they will change everything with a flick of a switch. So we invent a world where their competition is catching them up, in a futile attempt to make them insecure.

MSN & Yahoo are nice engines, good strong intentions. But it will be a cold day in hell before they swipe the initiative from google. Google may have problems with their serps ... but people still think 'Googling' is cool.

We should stop wasting our time attacking google and look to our own game. The years of the internet entrepreneur are coming to an end. The big guys have caught up and now it's time to move on to the next cool thing. It's back to basics or we will lose the game.

Sorry for gabbling on ... it's early on sunday morning here.

All the Best

Col :-)

[tedster]

Thanks for all the contributions and thoughts. I think we've covered the territory pretty well, so I am locking the thread.