Forum Moderators: mack
Results look very good so far, Look out Google!
AND THERE WAS THREE
The Dr
Authority: An accepted source of expert information or advice
Accepted by whom? Google perhaps? Inktomi? Webmasters? Authors?
For an information site, I understand what may constitute an "authority site", ie. large well established on topic site with many (what must be) genuine backlinks and possibly some contribution or vote from leading industry figures. However, regarding a retail site, what constitutes an authority?
Just because a large site selling lots of products has been around for some time at the top end of google would not in my opinion make them an "authority site". Backlinks in these circustances are usually link exchanges or paid for links and not genuine "votes" for a quality site.
FWIW my site is retail, quite large for it's sector, 2K+ pages and although young (18 months) keeps 7 people employed. For the last 6 months we have enjoyed great rankings on Yahoo/Msn, Jeeves and now the new msn beta. Google, conversely ranks us high only for unusual small money keywords.
No doubt there are many information site webmasters who rightfully feel aggreived that msn beta doesn't give them a higher ranking at the moment, but I think there are also many retail site webmasters who pompously think that it is their right to be ranked highly and complain on WW and other forums that this new search engine is just no good.
I welcome another credible medium and will work hard to maintain/improve our rankings, but I do not believe I have a right to high placement based on the length of time I have been "liked" by Google.
MSN, it seems, has a different way of sorting authorities (or whatever they use for their version of hilltop). The best thing about MSN to my eye is that they haven't turned into the "dynamic directory of directories" that Google now is.
Please don't take this as any kind of personal jab csnet. I have no idea if your sites fall into the common directory cum authority site. I just hope all the ones that do are ignored by MSN.
Colin
ps the bet is being taken care of offline :-)
[edited by: Tigrou at 12:05 am (utc) on Jan. 19, 2005]
Any more details? What does 3 week beta entail?
CF
The listings on Google are dire frankly. Out of date and not content related mixed with googles policy of sandboxing sites to help increase PPC income. Links are not King, content should be.
With google, its like saying i would only use the shop down the road that has been open for years and not try the nice new modern design one just opened because it hasnt been open long enough.
Time for Google to start updating on a regular basis all content sites.
Its the webmasters that have been sitting on loads of traffic for years that now have to start working on content for MSN rather than link exchanges if they want to feature.
rivi2k - any idea of time scale for msn.co.uk or is this what you refer to?
My wife and I are retired concert promoters, who have not stopped promoting. lol
I know most of the web masters here are selling products, and if MSN beta is doing well for them great. The problem is that users use a SE for other things beyond product searches. It is the non-product search area where MSN is weakest IMO.
For example, in the pop culture field, hundreds of sites simply cannt be found with MSN beta that are the top sites on Yahoo, Teoma (Ask), Mama, and Google.
As I said, using a two keyword search for an actress name produces SERPs where our site is #1 on all the other SEs and the actress commands 8 out of the top 10 positions. On MSN beta, this actress gets only 3 results in the top 10, and the top result for her is bizarre - it's a tobacco company links page with the actress name combined with "cigar". It's gross!
In any case, MSN is opening an excellent promotional opportunity for the competing SEs by providing a SE that does not produce usable results for the kinds of searches people do.
