MSN Cache Problem

Multiple versions of the page in cache – feature or bug

[Shurik]

One of my pages has 3 versions in msnscache; one indexed on 8/10 then 8/14 and 8/16. The curious thing is that these 3 versions rank on 3 different terms – one version per term - although the page content is virtually identical.

What possible reasons can MSN have for keeping multiple versions of pages in the cache? Can it possibly be a bug?

[goodroi]

The same reason why there is a cache in the first place, because a user might want to view what the page used to look like. Some people may consider it a bug since they have never seen it before, but I would consier this a great feature.

Of course it sounds like you may just be hitting different datacenters which would explain why the age of the index is slightly out of sync.

[Matty21]

I also had this problem and sent an email to msn (it is a bug, not a feature) they fixed the problem for me almost straight away BUT the page in question disappeared from the listings for about 3-4 week but did return to where it was orginally.

[Shurik]

The latest cache version regains rank as old versions become unavailable. I can still reliably pool out some versions of my page from cc.msnscache. com. Being a software developer myself I don’t thinks it is a bug. It feels as if they had some algo change that caused my page suddenly fell out of favor. Since the algo does not re-evaluate already cached pages the old version still ranked albeit poorly for some of the terms that newly cached version lost. As the pages in the cache expire the latest version regains the lost terms but the rankings are not even close to what they used to.

Sorry if it sounds too confusing but I think those who observed this phenomenon would understand. IMO this behavior gives some insides into how core MSN algo works. Of cause it is just my speculations…