How strong is MSN.com

How do they stack up to Google, Yahoo, or AOL?

[Rub]

I am trying to determine where to dedicate resources. I know Google and Yahoo pretty much decimate the competition but how strong is MSN in comparison?

[Grumpus]

So far this month?

5832 MSN
786 Google
216 YaGoogle

For targeted pages with specific information in the desctiption and title for many subjects, MSN is king. For general, broad based information where you can't get a specific topic onto each page, Google will do you better.

MSN doesn't do it's own crawl, though. You're looking at Looksmart and INK for backfill.

G.

[toolman]

MSN can drive huge amounts of traffic to your site. The best approach may be to bypass L$ and get a few PFI pages in INK. This will only work if there isnt 100 directory listings above the web pages section. Even still it probably wont be much longer before most of those are gone too.

INK pages are especially good at snagging longer search terms stemming from the more common ones, like: "where can I find apartments in Mongolia" as opposed to the more conventional "Mongolia apartments"

[Grumpus]

Agreed on the ink stuff. Ink searches work in much the same way that Google searches work. They are much better for 3+ word searches. "BLUE WIDGETS" will ultimately get you 50 gazzilion hits from the L$ directory, but "WHOLESALE BLUE WIDGETS WITH ACCESSORIES" will be a good term to brink Ink traffic.

G.

[duhboy]

Hi everyone!
I'm seeking some opinions as usual.
I am pretty sure that paid inclusion in Inktomi is a worthy move.
At this time I'm considering paying for only my "index" page- $49 US. as a test so to speak. If the results are favourable, I will consider submitting more pages in the furture.

My log files show that this is the page which is most often returned in SERPs as it has been optimized etc. as have others.

So, do you think that this is a sound approach?
If you have a limited budget, you are in Yahoo and OPD, where would you focus your limited funds at this time. I would really like to start getting some results from MSN and AOL.

And it seems that in order to submit to the paid inclusion for small business, one has to use an affiliate.
Any concerns here?

Thanks for your time everyone.
Duhboy.:)

[Grumpus]

I'd wait a week or two if your site is already included in INK for free - if not, you've got nothing to lose. The reason I say wait if you've got a free listing already is that while Ink has taken the steps to fix the problem with my site, they haven't come up with a definitive statement about whether they've fixed the problem overall. (That problem being that if you have free pages, and then pay, those free pages leave the database altogether in some cases).

Again, if you aren't already in their index for free (or if only the page you are going to submit is in there) then go ahead. It's a great way to work on SEO for spiders for the simple fact that you get to see the results rather quickly. (Every 2 days, to be exact).

G.

[Birdman]

How exactly do you find out if you are in Ink? I tried thier home page, but that only had site search.

[agerhart]

You can use the Inktomi Pure Search [169.207.238.189]

[duhboy]

Hi again
I too used the pure search(many thanks), so I'm in thier DB. Also I know I've been spidered recently.
The index page(previously mentioned) for my site is the one in the DB, yet it shows poorly at MSN.
How do I go about improving the visiblity?
Would a paid submit (to INK) improve visibility at MSN?
I did read the previous post about waiting a week, which sounds fine but this forum will edu-kate me in the mean time.
Thanks again, Duhboy.:)

[Grumpus]

Duhboy - Nope - all paying will do will make you so you can see results sooner getting to the top of the "WEB PAGES" listing at MSN. At MSN, you've got to go through any relevant matching sites in the Looksmart directory to even see the INK results. For common search terms, such as names, etc. it's tough to make a go with Ink. Ink works better with long and more specific search terms.

An interesting thing here... L$ won't let you put "superlatives" in your site descriptions such as "best" "good" etc. Therefore, if there are a million pages for "Widgets" in the L$ directory, and you optimize your site for "Best Widgets", you stand a good chance if someone searches for that on MSN as it'll likely bypass the entire L$ directory as there isn't a site in there with the term, except if it's in the domain name like "bestwidgets.com"

G.

[fom2001uk]

Grumpus, that's brilliant. You get my vote for tip of the month, maybe the year !

It's really important to check out the comp on LS before optimising your pages for INK. This will make things a lot easier.

Thanks a lot :-)

[Grumpus]

In respects to MSN, yes. It's vital that you check the WEB SITES results first.

Looks like MSN has something going on right now that is likely to change things, though. Some searches for the past 24 hours have been coming in from beta.search.msn.com. These results, right now, anyway, are identical to the results at search.msn.com so I don't know what is up. All I know is that if there isn't some sort of test going on over at MSN and you go to beta.search.msn it gives you a message that says, "The beta period is complete, thanks for you participation." Will be worth keeping an eye on.

G.

[Grumpus]

Another thing I forgot to mention (it popped into my head over in another discussion...). When you are looking to optimize your INK listing to appear in Zeal, superlatives are best because no-one can use them. Another good tactic can be to put in "Buy-Words" or "Commercial Words."

For example, I can put in my free listing, "photos, movie data links...." but I can't put, "posters, videos, DVD's, CDs" and I especially can't use words like "Buy" "Purchase" etc. Now, the paid L$ listings can have those in them, but by using "buy-words" you only automatically ensure that about 80-90% of the Looksmart directory is going to be weeded out if someone uses that word. Even if you don't make the first page, you are much more likely to be on the second page than without them.

Find the commercial category you think you'd be put in if you paid for a listing, then read every title and description and think of some "buy-words" that no-one (optimally) or only one or two (still okay) have thought to use.

G.