Result Strategies??

[jitesh]

Hi

In msn search as we know on a search the result shown is on following basis,

1) Sponserd site -> Msn advertisers
2) Fetured sites -> Overture
3) web dir (Top 10 sites) -> Direct hit/ Teoma

and the other result are comming form looksmart, Inktomi and microsoft's own database.

What is the algo of ranking dose msn follow to rank the sites, which it collects for the above mentioned databases.

Now what I mean to say is, what is the mixture formula ;)

Anybody please.........

[ihelpyou]

No one really knows now as L$ went to PPC and even they don't know what they are doing.

[Mel]

HI Jitesh:

As Doug mentioned things are in a state of flux at MSN these days and are likely to change regularly, but as of today doing a search for the term "search engine optmization" (without the quotes) you get:

First - "sponsored sites" these are the results of the current (these can change from minute to minute as people change their Overture bids) top three bids at Overture for this keyphrase.

Second - "web directory sites" these are Look$mart PPC results (and as such are mislabeled), but they are ranked by your look$mart title and description plus the keywords which Look$mart passes to their partners with the file. In this case there are right now 216 Look$mart PPC results and there are no Inktomi websites displayed, So all that MSN is displaying for this search is PPC results.

You should note that according to L$ stated policy the number of PPC results displayed will vary during the Look$mart billing period with almost all sites being displayed during the early part of the cycle and fewer results during the latter part of the cycle. MSN appears to be displaying Overture results only if the top three bids for that term are above the 15 cents that Look$mart is charging.

If you do a more specific search such as "search engine optimization guide" you will get a different set of results:

First- straight to "Web Directory sites" (presumably because there are not three Overture bids above 15 cents for this phrase) and in this case there are only 6 directory (L$ PPC) sites so:

Second they then add some 40,000 web pages from Inktomi which are ranked according to the MSN page ranking algo.

Hope this is not too confusing, but MSN and L$ is very confusing these days.

[jitesh]

Thanks mel and everybody, your reply is of great help. :)

:hit: MSN Looksmart allmost drive me crazy. So what I conclude form all the discussion, one cannot get a high ranking in MSN without paying either to overture or L$.

Is my conclusion correct or do your think there are other ways out.

Please let me know.

[Advisor]

You can get a high ranking at MSN through Inktomi as long as your not shooting for highly competitive keyphrases.

LookSmart is not a good option any more as they use what I would consider unethical and possibly illegal methods to do business.

Jill