Ranking with MSN w/o Looksmart

[highman]

Hello everyone, my first post to this forum...... nice software ihelpyou..... congrats... I seem to be hanging it in forums all day now... must do some work soon

On to my question, MSN uses Looksmart and Ink results, in this scenario the targeted keyphrase returns 134,000 results. The first page is dominated by LookSmart results apart from the very last listing which is the start of the INK results ( #15 ). I want that spot....... the site in question sells low cost products (my personal venture) and will eventually be submitted to LS and Yahoo! when finances allow!, it has a good keyworded ODP listing (3 of them) is 2 months old, ranks #1 on google and # 3 on AOL for the same phrase.

My problem is in MSN I cannot pull the site up from #33 :confused: link pop shows 67 on MSN and 90 on Google.

Is my lack of LS listing and Yahoo listing causing this problem?

Site was submitted through positiontech (2 pages)

Sorry for the long post but thought I would come in with a bang

[ihelpyou]

Welcome to the forums highman! :hi:

Have read your posts elsewhere. You have helped many people with your knowledge and we are happy you stopped by!

Okay, since the spot you are referring to is supplied by Inktomi, there are many questions now on whether Ink does give preference to "paid" listings. Did you pay for Inktomi?

Also, Ink does rely on link popularity in a big way so Yes, a listing in Looksmart and Yahoo would go a long way to good ranks.

[highman]

>Did you pay for Inktomi?

Yes 2 pages

[ihelpyou]

Okay, then you are able to tweak your way to the top. BUT, the directory listings would help a bunch!

Also, a signature file made up here could boost link pop. :)

[highman]

ihelpyou, thanks for the quick replies... I have been tweaking for England, so to speak, even copied that #15 page in everyway with my content inserted to see if that would do it..... but to no avail, it is a wierd one. MSN has only just started showing my sites link pop so maybe time will help. I wonder if DH has an impact, not only as a link but as a wieghting factor in MSN

[ihelpyou]

Well, I know each engine who uses Ink data does so in their own way, but I do not believe that DirectHit would have an influence with Ink listings in MSN.

[JuniorHarris]

Welcome highman!~ :hi:

It's been a while since I've really looked closely at MSN, and haven't really done much research since they started/finished rolling out the new beta MSN. We do have our home page listed with LS but not Yahoo. Since the site is fairly new (less then 9 months) link popularity is between zero and nil (well maybe 1 or 3). However, we have been able to optimize several pages which appear in the top 5 inktomi listings on MSN. I will add that the site/pages are well optimized for theme-based content, and typically the keywords are only moderately competitive where inktomi [web pages] are started on the first page. These pages are also indexed regularly through the Positiontech (http://www.positiontech.com) inclusion program.

I will add that it appears since the implementation of the beta msn, that some of our listings have slipped a little. Most notable due to the sponsored listings and an increase in (looksmart) web directory sites.

[highman]

Hello JuniorHarris,

My site is indeed well optimised (think I sent you the url once) and has masses of theme based content and good link pop (for 2 months anyway) maybe I have slightly over optimised and am suffering from a +20 penalty maybe.......

Nice to catch you again.....

Off topic.... check your mail 8)

[Mel]

Hi There Highman:

I don't think anyone (including MSN) has the new MSN algo down pat at this point in time.

I have noticed that Link popularity and themes are prominent features of top ranked MSN results, but suspect that LS listings are also important.

There have also been some suggestions that MSN might also be looking at clickthroughs. The fact is PositionTech now say that they can track your click throughs in Ink engines.

I do know that a new site I had #15 on MSN through a paid listing dropped like a rock to #78 overnight, but other pages that did not drop all seemed to be the older and more popular pages.

If you figure it out be sure to let us know

[JuniorHarris]

Yes I have the url, and it is well optimized...doh, I apologize!~

But you may have hit upon something when you mentioned being over optimized. I had considered this as well for the reason some pages now rank a tad lower in the new MSN. I don't remember the exact density for those pages, but I would say I was on the high[man] end of the density range!~ It could be possible that the algorithm now has a much tighter range of optimal keyword densities and maybe a small downward tweak should be considered.

I simply don't have time currently to test this...but hopefully once I'm complete with my current project I may have time to once again immerse myself into this level of technical research.

:read:

<just read mel's post>

Similar observations here as well...those pages which tend to be our most popular still place well, whereas those less popular have slipped somewhat. Remember this is all off-the-cuff, and I really would have to perform more in-depth research to reach and/or provide any constructive conclusions.

:read:

[Mel]

Hi JH:

I have been using Positiontechs paid submission to tweak some pages in MSN since they get spidered every 48 hours and are usually in the MSN results within a week.

I had some pages that were Very Very keyword intense, (like 28 keywords on the page) and when I dropped the keyword count to half that the page dropped still further.

If you go to some #1 ranked pages (like First Place Softwares WPG page) they have 33 occurences of their keyword phrase on the home page and still rank well, I think due to their link popularity.

[highman]

Hi Mel,
As i said in an above post I even copied the top INK site and switched the content bar the keywords so it was an exact copy in every way just new images..... and that got us #33 when they hold #15 so there is def more than just keyword weights.... just checked the top ranking INK site has 35 links on MSN we have 60.

Interesting they have 4 Yahoo! listings...... mmmm

[Mel]

Hi Highman:

does the first ranking page have a looksmart listing?

Some SEOs feel that you have to hit all the bases with MSN, which would include Looksmart and excite. IF you can find an available keyword RealName that you can buy that will get you the number one spot above everybody.

When thinking baout links think about the quality of the links as well as the number. Looksmart, About, Yahoo, ODP are all high quality links which will rate much more highly than links from Joes diner.

[ihelpyou]

aw geez, and I thought Joes Diner was really prominent in these here parts..... was goin ta assk fo a linc fro em... :rolleyes:

[Mel]

Well I really wouldn't trade a bucket of Joes Southern Fried Chicken withthat iced beer, even for a better ranking on MSN, but Joe is picky about those things and won't give me a link until I have a better lookin' site.

[highman]

Hi Mel,
>does the first ranking page have a looksmart listing?

No it dosent.... it is wierd, I hold #1 on google, aol, lycos etc but MSN well..... nightmare #43

shall i post the link to the search and get all your ideas? MSN is causing me pain..... not only for this site (which is a personal experiment site) but a few others

[ihelpyou]

By all means, post-it! You can post any Url's you like here as long as they help you with a question or help the thread. :)

[highman]

OK see what you think any advice much app. here (http://search.msn.com/results.asp?ba=(14.16)0(.)0....&co=(0.15)6(0.1)200.1.4.10.&FORM=MSNH&RS=CHECKED&q=passion+flower&v=1) #43 and #44 :(

[JuniorHarris]

One quick observation is the top Web Pages (no 15) is a .org site.

Your site is listed number one for passion flower on line (http://search.msn.com/results.asp?q=passion+flower+on+line&origq=passion+flower&RS=CHECKED&FORM=SMCRB&v=1&nosp=0&cfg=SMCINITIAL)

Also listed number one for passion flower pictures (http://search.msn.com/results.asp?q=passion+flower+pictures&origq=passion+flower+on+line&RS=CHECKED&FORM=SMCRT&v=1&nosp=0&cfg=SMCINITIAL)

And number one for passion flower exotic (http://search.msn.com/results.asp?q=passion+flower+exotic&origq=passion+flower+pictures&RS=CHECKED&FORM=SMCRT&v=1&nosp=0&cfg=SMCINITIAL)

And number one for buy passion flower (http://search.msn.com/results.asp?q=buy+passion+flower&origq=passion+flower+buy&RS=CHECKED&FORM=SMCRT&v=1&nosp=0&cfg=SMCINITIAL)

And number two for passion flower fruit (http://search.msn.com/results.asp?q=passion+flower+fruit&origq=passion+flower+exotic&RS=CHECKED&FORM=SMCRT&v=1&nosp=0&cfg=SMCINITIAL)

And number two for passion flower shop (http://search.msn.com/results.asp?q=passion+flower+shop&origq=passion+flower+fruit&RS=CHECKED&FORM=SMCRT&v=1&nosp=0&cfg=SMCINITIAL)


Interesting to note, that in the above examples it is the keyword document page which appears and not the index as when only two words are used. I also noticed the density (http://www.searchengineworld.com/cgi-bin/kwda.cgi?url=http://www.passiflora-uk.co.uk/passion-flower.htm) may be high for passion flower. Also wondering how link popularity compares as well.

Not sure what all this means, but maybe it will provide some insight for now... :read:

[highman]

Thankyou JuniorHarris, sometimes you just cant see the wood for the trees...... plan in action, reporting back, ETA approx 48hrs + few because its an SE after all ;)

[ihelpyou]

My thoughts...

You only use the term ... passion flower... one time in the regular body content.

I would somehow stick it in the first paragraph 2 more times.

[JuniorHarris]

Great observation Doug, maybe sacrifice a few alt tags and put those in the content!~ Best luck highman let us know how it works out...though I'm not sure what I said!~ :rolleyes:

[highman]

I think everyone has been looking at different versions of the page.... lol.
I was up late playing around with it.

To be honest I have already tried nearly every combination of keyword wieghts in body / tags, volume of page words etc with little success so I thought I would throw it to the forum.

Think of it as a test page, we know it has not got a yahoo! or looksmart listing, it has ODP and good page rank at google, so just how high should it go in ink / MSN?
Im quite prepared to play with this page, but not the index page..... its doing too well

JuniorHarris what you said, it just brought me back to raw SEO rather than flying off with wierd ideas. :cheers:

[ihelpyou]

I am talking about the passion-flower.htm page. What I mean is the search term of

passion flower

is only written one time on the page in the regular content. I know it is in a link and also in an <h> tag, but only in the written content once. This makes a huge difference and may explain the 40 some rank on it in Inktomi.

[highman]

ihelpyou, yes i understand that, before you looked it had multiple occurences causing the body wieght to go sky high (as mentioned by juniorharris) this has now been trimmed to what you see.... plan is to add one occurence per 48hrs update to monitor the effects on ranking.... it may well drop in rankings now, and hopefully rise as I add the keyphrase.

Its an open 'all to see' experiment

[ihelpyou]

oh, that is great! Put the next test with the phrase in the content 3 times.

Keep us updated as to what happens.

[JuniorHarris]

Much tougher to hit a moving target!~ <lol>

Sounds like you have a great approach highman, it will be interesting to hear the results. Implementing a gradual increase and reviewing each ranking should reflect a reasonable demarcation where ranks may be inhibited outside a particular density range.

Though we must caution others, any resultant percentage which may work well for you might not perform equally well for others. I am of the opinion, that though density does play a part, no one range may be acceptable for all cases, all circumstances, and all levels of competitiveness.

[highman]

>reflect a reasonable demarcation where ranks may be inhibited outside a particular density range.

my thoughts exactly

lol... Junior you been chewing those dictionaries again :scattered

[JuniorHarris]

Urp!~ It must be the MazY effect!~ ;)

[highman]

As expected dropped 20+ places, now added 2 more occurences to the body text....dropped the word seed from the description, see what happens

[ihelpyou]

hey, I like this scorecard type thing. :)

[highman]

After adding 2 occ. of the keyphrase to the body text and droping the word 'seed' from the description the page sits @ #67 .... mmm... suggestions?

Interestingly a quick check for the top 30 sites (after Lsmart) shows most of these sites are using free hosting companies, so when carrying out the linkdomain check the root of these url's display massive link pop, so, does the 'page' carry the roots link pop I wonder?

More playing tonight

[JuniorHarris]

highman how is the link popularity for your site as a comparison?

[highman]

We show 63 links
#15 site shows 35 links (but with Yahoo as a big extra one we dont have)

The other sites which use free hosting (member.aol etc) show 'nil' or very few inbound links to the page itself, but when doing a linkdomain on the root of the site it shows massive amounts of links

When looked at in this context it would appear that MSN is indeed using the link pop of the 'root url' and not the page itself to order rankings.

I need to do more research in this area for a final conclusion, and it still dosent account for the #15 listing

Mike (thinking about a private page at members.aol.com) :rolleyes:

[JuniorHarris]

Interesting...sounds like more research is in order!~ Keep us posted and we'll keep our fingers crossed.

[highman]

Well after a few hours research its depressing results, a good 30 - 40% of the listings above me are pure spam... this is bad news, mainly affiliate one page sites with hidden text / fast JS redirects, keyword stuffing etc etc .. no wonder its proving difficult :rolleyes:

Plan B then :)

Anyone know a MSN e-mail address? just in case I need Plan C

[ihelpyou]

I also would like to know a contact at MSN for support. Their search support is next to nothing at all.

Ink seems to be letting a bunch of spam in these days. This will do nothing but derail any relevancy they have. Who wants to pay to be listed with a pile of Spam?

[MazY]

Originally posted by ihelpyou
Who wants to pay to be listed with a pile of Spam?

Not me. I can get that for free with Google! :D

[ihelpyou]

lol. no kiddin. At least it is for free. :)

[highman]

Should we set up a list of SE contact e-mail addresses for the purpose of reporting spam? I have reported it to MSN but is it down to them? or INK?

[ihelpyou]

Actually, I think would be up to both. MSN has it's own algo of which they are placing spammy pages at the top. Ink is actually letting the spammy pages into their database. So both?

[highman]

I have now reported it to INK and MSN but dont hold out much hope on that front........ still got a few things to try, never give up me

[ihelpyou]

Yes. believe we should open a thread in the "Spam" forum with all the email addys of engines to report the spam.

[The Ney]

Hi guys...
New to the forum, new to SEO but it seems that everywhere you turn, you find people that have scars on their foreheads from hitting the head into the wall when it comes to MSN ranking.

I found a rather interesting article about ranking well at MSN, and since this is one of the rare forums where one can post a URL, i am posting its home page here MSN ranking (https://www.webseed.com/) since this is a secure document, you will have too find it on the page, but its not too hard.

The article is posted on webseeds.com SEO company`s homepage. I found them due to their #1 ranking on Google for "web site optimization" key phrase. Rather impressive, if you are asking me...

[ihelpyou]

Welcome to the forums The Ney! :hi:

It so happens that you our at the forums of us, which the owner, that being Me, is ranked #2 on that same phrase. :)

Not a good phrase for searches though. Not many at all. There should be as that is what we actually do.

That page did not work. It is not on the home page as the Url said it was a secure page?

[The Ney]

Sorry, i have edited my original message...
and another correction, they rank #1 for "web site promotion"

[ihelpyou]

I still cannot go to that page..... must be having server problems or my browser just cannot go there.

[Mel]

Hi The Ney

Nice link on MSN, It may be of interest to you to note that this is exactly the method Doug has been using for some time, but it does work.

[ihelpyou]

I do not agree with this:
Must have your keywords in your LookSmart title and description
You do not have to have a keyword in the title at all. LS knows that your title should be your business name. Because of this, the title is not given much importance.

I also do not believe in the direct hit theory.

I do believe that LS assigns certain categories of terms per site that is listing and this info is somehow passed to MSN.

[Mel]

HI Doug:

I tend to agree and disagree at the same time.

Why can't MSN read and rank based on the Looksmart title and description?

I know that I have a keyphase in my LS title and I get a top ranking on MSN directory (without any links pop to speak of and NO Direct Hit listing) for that very keyphrase.

[highman]

I tend to agree that an LS listing is important for a top ranking in MSN, but the question was achieving it without the LS listing, so we are talking INK and poss Direct Hit / link pop

[ihelpyou]

Oh Mel, I am not saying that your title is not important. I am saying that LS does not put the emphasis on the title like a Yahoo does. With Yahoo, you almost HAVE to have your keyphrase in the title, or you or plain out of luck. WIth LS, the title is an afterthought, but it does help. I have many sites who are ranked highly on MSN with their real business name in the title.

highman, you are right, this thread started out talking about ranking at MSN without LS, but because of Inktomi. :eek:

[Mel]

Sorry Highman - back on topic

IMO one of the most important areas in MSN is link pop.

I have recently done ten different unrelated searches for popular terms and in each case the top five web pages listed were in order of their link pop. After the first five pages this does not hold any longer for some reason - here's an example

top six web pages and their links

1 -2486
2 - 372
3 - 344
4 - 344 (same site as #3 different page)
5 - 0
6. - 13, 868

Since the number 6 site has much better link pop than all the rest there is obviously another more important factor at work here, still working on what that is.

[highman]

OK here are my findings, these are the web pages listed after the LS listings

pos - links

#15 - 42
#16 - 5
#17 - 17
#18 - 0
#19 - 0
#20 - 0
#21 - 47
#22 - 2
#23 - 4
#24 - 0

------


my site was listed at #40 with 60 inbound links, checking today it is still at the same position but now with zero links :confused:

[The Ney]

Well maybe they do consider the links attribute, but only for top rankings....

[ihelpyou]

This shows me that link pop is weighted very lightly as well.

[highman]

Yeh, just to get this clear, its INK (Web Pages) results were looking at.

So maybe its an age / direct hit weight on the results and then obv. if you get a LS listing it adds additional weight to that domain

[Mel]

hi Highman:

Yes we're looking at the web pages but, if you get an LS listing which ranks for the keyword in question it should show up in MSN under the directory results at the top of the page, which is better still.

[highman]

Mel, yes agreed, but I cant afford $299 for this small experimental site selling products for peanuts..... but a #15 position is on the front page of MSN and is the start of the 'Web Pages'...... and hence my target using INK

[JuniorHarris]

Interesting given the number of links you have. I really can't imagine them trying to analyze the link attribute, as that would have to be some costly programming. And with 60, one could expect at least a handful to match. Now, if we were referring to Google, I'd have to change my opinion!~ ;)

[Mel]

Hi all;

Relevant to this discussion is that in the past month or so MSN seem to have changed their link ranking scoring.

Pages (Good relevant pages) which previously had many links seem suddenly to have few or none. Not quite sure what to make of this but am interested to know if otheres feel the same, as I think this is a part of the MSN Algo.

[ihelpyou]

If you mean the LS listings, I have never thought that link pop was a high priority. If you mean the Ink listings, YES. I agree that link pop is not playing much of a role.

[markymark]

I don't think Link Pop plays any part at all in the algos used by MSN or Inktomi. Keyword density is all.

[highman]

Just poping back to this thread to report;

Mission achieved

Now sat on first page right underneath the LSmart listings.... took a while and it all came down to getting listed in the BOW, this only happened once the site had held top positions across most other engines for a few months. MSN also now report all the inbound links to the site, which they intially acknowledged and then dropped.

[Mel]

Great Highman - Now the rest of us will have to find our way up to the Hallowed BOW.

[highman]

Well I hope the experience helps people into BOW, at the start of this thread I was really pulling my hair out as to why I could not get above #32 (i think it was), I mean i tried everything to improve the sites position and in the end it was never going to have any effect.....

[JuniorHarris]

Great to read you achieved your goal highman!~ We must BOW to your diligence and research. :nerd:

I suppose the take-away from this thread is, that it is vitally important to be included not just in inktomi, but also classified in their best-of-the-web (BOW) in order to achieve top inktomi positions.

Great work ole chap!~ 8)

[tamalyn]

hi
I was just wondering after reading your messages, how many keywords you should add to your meta tags? I have just submitted a site to inktomi and i only have about 9 keywords, is that enough?
thankyou for any help
Tamalyn

[MsSearch]

9 is ok...i usually stick to 4-5 keyword phrases. Careful not to repeat the same word too many times (no more than 2-3 times).

[ihelpyou]

Welcome to the forums tamalyn! :hi:

I took a look at your cute site! :)

You need to do some research to find your targeted keyphrases. www.wordtracker.com is good for this. You have some very general one-word keywords like 'baby' that will not do you any good. You need to get more targeted.

[oliphaunt]

Hi,

trying to get a good ranking in MSN as well and read the whole post here and was wondering, where can I find the BOW.

A link would be appreciated.

Thanks

daniel

[Advisor]

BOW isn't something you can find, it's just one of INK's databases of sites. I heard they're getting away from using that now and may have integrated everything together. Not exactly sure though.

Jill