Optimising for MSN search

[david_uk]

Just been checking my site on the various search engines. Top positions on most of them except MSN! I'm shuffled down to page 4 of MSN - below the made for adsense sites.

I'm not particularly up with SEO techniques I'm afraid. Is there a list somewhere of how to optimise a site for MSN, or anybody able to give me any tips?

[Johan007]

MSN I presume ranks sites primarily similar to every other SE based on back links analysis. The reason we rank low is because all our back links are contained deep inside other massive websites and MSN does not weigh deep links as much as Google does?

But this just a guess based on my limited experience.

[Receptional]

I'm just going to put in a Sunday evening glass of wine in hand thought here...

Maybe the fact that you are not really "up on SEO techniques" is working to your advantage on Google especially and is exactly why you are doing well on the others - and not so great on Microsoft. This is because Google and yahoo seem so much better at spotting SEO techniques - and let's face it, the signature is pretty complete these days, but MSN is not so adept yet.

But MSN has still only just begun - and they have staying power...

[SFReader]

David, although not as extreme, my sites experience a similar patern of being the top on Y & G, but lower on MSN.

Fortunately it isn't as important to do well in the MSN SERPs, since most clicks from MSN are to their paid ads.

[cellularnews]

Well, one factor is that MSN is very spam friendly at the moment.

Only this morning, I found a site ranked highly on some results and the only place the keywords appeared was in a block of commented-out text at the bottom of the page.

That page doesn't even exist in the other search engines.

[Reno]

Receptional...

I'm a little confused about your observation:

This is because Google and yahoo seem so much better at spotting SEO techniques - and let's face it, the signature is pretty complete these days, but MSN is not so adept yet

Does that mean that people who do a good job optimizing their pages are being penalized for being too effective? If that's the case, then it's a sad state of affairs when the powers-that-be are saying "do your job too well and be punished ... do a mediocre job and be rewarded". I hope I have mis-interpreted your posting!

..................................

[cellularnews]

I think it is more a case that Google is more aware of deliberate SEO tactics as opposed to organic relevency of the content on a web page.

As good content can sometimes be hidden by poor content that is highly "optimised" - then Google, quite rightly IHMO will tend to penalise obviously SEO'd webpages.