msn.com / msn.co.uk

diffrences in results

[GodLikeLotus]

Our UK targeted site seems to have taken a knock with our main keyword gaining us 1st place until now that is. Our homepage has vanished from the results.

I beleive MSN uses Ink but there are big differences between the main MSN results and the UK MSN results. Can anyone explain this?

One thing about the page that we have lost is that it does have over 100 links in but it may have too many ketwords in the meta-tags.

[scottyman]

GodLikeLotus,

MSN.com use the US version of Looksmart which is a PPC engine. MSN UK results are from the Directory (Looksmart.co.uk) and Inktomi.

No idea why you would lose your spot in the UK. Unless you dropped for Ink.

[nicebloke]

There are no Looksmart directory listings on MSN UK any more. At the moment it's Overture, then Inktomi.

[sandi]

That's not exactly true, Looksmart listings are still on MSN.co.uk but are blended in with the Inktomi results.

[nicebloke]

Directory listings I said.

[scottyman]

Thanks Nicebloke, I keep forgeting about the Looksmart Directory no longer being in MSN. Shame.

[Stretch]

Eh?

According to this [advantage.msn.co.uk] 'MSN has now ended their relationship with LookSmart in the UK'.

So, forgive my ignorance, but what service do looksmart offer that gets listings on MSN?

[Rubylily]

I used to have very good positions for my main keywords on MSN.co.uk courtesy of my Looksmart Directory listing, which brought me in quite a bit of quality traffic. When MSN axed the LS Directory listings I figured it was time to revive my expired Ink submission.

Having done that I am now appearing on MSN.com no problem, but have vanished totally from MSN.co.uk. To add to my confusion my stats package is telling me that Slurp hasn't touched my site at all (the MSN bot has stopped by a few times though). So I don't know what the hell is going on with either Ink/Slurp or MSN.co.uk...

[ArturX]

based on a research I did for my client recently, msn.co.uk uses Ink results only, but I don't understand why these results are so diferent from Pure Ink Search [search.positiontech.com] or Msn.com "web pages" results.

I have read that MSN.com will get rid of LS in January 2004 so the UK results might show the future results of MSN.com. But WHY the algorithm changed so much? Anyone knows more?

Artur

[nicebloke]

There's some kind of geo-filter going on at MSN.com and MSN UK, I believe, which could be affecting results. This won't be applied to the pure search.