MSN Algo Update
 

WOW! I am now listing on page one for almost all of my main search terms!

BUT, a friend of mine has a very similar site and from ranking really high, they have like disappeared - not completely, but big loss of position.

Does anyone know more about this MSN algo update? I'd be really grateful.

I have real problems with my site due to this algo update if that's what's going on.. so I certify that something is moving.. don't know what..

Hi,

Congratulations on riding high in MSN!

I don't think even Microsoft know how their algo works. The MSN search engine is based on the idea that the algorithm should perfect itself until it comes up with a listing that shows the top ten (say) sites that are pre-chosen.

It's still pretty experimental in my view.

Cheers,
Paz.

pretty interesting results showing up lately.
two-bit spam sites are outperforming authority sites.

Everybody knows that a time will come when MSN will apply new and tighten up some existing filters a la google to refine their results, but if this is what they've come up with, then big G doesnt have to worry about anything.

Pre-chosen?

I assume Paz is just joking. Even if it might seem that way for some results.

Microsoft knows fine well that they would be neck deep in solid waste if they were to do that. Plus, love them or hate them, they employ the absolute cream of the crop - they are more than capable of formulating a logical indexing strategy. It might not be based on binary tree's, or probability maps, but I'm fairly sure there will be an identifiable logic there that doesn't involve making a list of "my best buddy's sites" or pinning a tail on a virtual donkey.

Nope.... ;)

It's a self-learning algorithm run on a neural network. They "seed" what they think are quality search results for a given term and run re-iterations until the algo gets it right.

The problem for me is that "quality" can sometimes depend on the market you are in, ie a quality news and current affairs site is a very different beast to a quality casino site say. I've always had the feeling that Google somehow have slightly different algos for different searches/markets, which enables them to give quality results across the board.

Anyway, the MSN neural network has a lot of learning to do in my view.

http://glinden.blogspot.com/2005/06...ng-to-rank.html
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/050622-082709

Cheers,
Paz.

oh yes, im #1 for major terms now, lol too bad for every 1 visitor msn sends me google sends me 300 :p

Emergent technology... I read a book awhile back called "Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software" it was interesting though I wouldn't recommend it.

IMO, it's merely trying to automate the feedback loop... forward thinking and appropriate but as Paz said, I certainly wouldn't pretend to think that things are close to being sorted yet.

I have noticed.............
 

One thing from updating this new algo on msn the dynamic sites are up on most of the kws so what it is ?? can anybody explain me in this matter and what is the latest algo of msn.

Hi,

MSN's certainly always been ahead of the rest when indexing dynamic urls, (especially asp/aspx ones in my view!) but I hadn't noticed a prominence of dynamic urls in the serps I check. Perhaps you could post an example of a search term?

Most of the comments I've seen have reported a stronger link than before between on-page factors and serps.

I dropped back a lot a couple of weeks ago after this update, and still haven't fully recovered.

Cheers,
Paz.

so you are attempting to recover - by 'recover' are you focussing on your on page or off page factors? Can you give me an idea of what you are doing? Not stealing your thunder or trying to pry, just have come out really well in the latest MSN update, and kind of wonder what I did RIGHT - by fluke so to speak... and I seem to be coming up in google sloooowly - different topic I know, but STILL like only around number 50 - for one or two terms of over 100 so nothing to yell about...
Thanks Paz...

...can you be 'less-than-techy' if you reply as I am soooo not understanding alot of the programming speak...though I'm working on it :eyes: and glurphel stanx... that's about my understanding so far... doing well as you can see...giggle... :o betta go....

LOL... by recover I mean wait for MSN to sort itself out. I know that sounds arrogant but I have a few sites that had top rankings in MSN, ranking well in Yahoo and consistently improving in Google.

When I do a ranking check and find that I've suddenly dropped from #1-5 to #20-200 (worst case) for a bunch of keywords, but gone up a little in Yahoo and Google at the same time, I'm inclined to ignore the MSN results, carry on doing what I'm doing (fresh relevant content and backlinks) and wait for the rankings to improve.

I'm really happy you're doing well in MSN right now, but it's such a fickle search engine these days. It relies a lot on on-page factors (as far as I've heard), which as you know are too easily manipulated so that in the short-term their serps could well throw up a lot of junk for some competitive search terms.

One good thing about MSN is that it's really fast at digging out new topics of interest, and I think that's where their priority lies - ultra-fresh content.

So perhaps I can ask you? What aspects of your site are you working on in particular that could be responsible for your good rankings in MSN?

Cheers,
Paz.

Hey Paz... linking (slow but steady) - to both home page and main product pages, article writing, blogging, adding new pages, altering existing pages, making minor html content changes on the home page every 3-5 days, alter meta descs about once every 2 months for all pages.

I have also written most pages using the ranks.nl keyword density and prominence tool, but if you check the pages, you'll see that they are targeted at the customer, though I will admit that on a few pages it doesn't flow as well as it would if it had been written entirely by just lil' ol' me...

I recently added a full site map off the home page, and that seems to have a pretty profoundly positive effect, thanking the forum for that tidbit...I have also linked all sub-info pages to my main product pages. and I am adding pages constantly.

I am trying to avoid duplicate content, and google doesn't recognise alot of my pages which rank no.1 on msn - so I have to try to become more google friendly... having a struggle there. But you know, seriously, there is only so much you can say about warts... :-)

Is that OK?

Sounds like you're a credit to the forum!

I'm sure I totally agree with your SEO campaign, especially the mixture of homepage- and deep-linking as well as the careful considerations on content. I have to say though, I prefer not to alter my titles and descriptions unless I see a glaring hole or problem, and when I do see an issue I prefer to add a new page, rather than edit an existing one.

I think Google prefers "established" pages, but probably acknowledges injection of fresh content elsewhere. A home page of course will always shift, but I can't help thinking that yours has dropped too much text since I last looked. A thousand words a page is always my position for an optimised page, but of course that can be too much for someone who needs a remedy ASAP - ie such pages may not convert well. We have to find a compromise.

Anyway, I can see you're building a real resource for people who suffer from warts and other ailments, and I'm sure you'll continue to make progress in Google , but what do you mean there's only so much you can say about warts.... Apparently there's

Treatment
Tests/diagnosis
Sufferers
Medical authorities
Symptoms
Causes/risk factors
Alternative medicine etc...

Get busy!

And best of luck!
Paz.

Hey Paz

Thanks for that. There WERE some glaring errors in my meta descs - I didn;t really understand their importance and was focussing more on the keywords, which I now realise are pretty useless, though they are pretty optimised anyway and I'm going to leave them alone. Once I have the descs right, I will leave them alone. Thanks for that.

As to warts, I have optimised pages for one term each - 19 of them so far. If you go to the sitemap (http://www.naturallyguaranteed.com/sitemap.html ) you will see them all listed. And now I am running out, so am thinking to go back in and redo the main ones that are as yet still like no-where in Google... ever get that sinking feeling? :flush:

I think that perhaps part of my problem is that I am an affiliate site, though I personally think mine is better than the main one... www.amoils.com

It is my current only means of income, and it seemed like a great idea at the time. Now I realise that real SEO is a tad more complicated than I initially thought :confused:

thanks for the reply! Have good weekend!

Lineops:

That parent site is absolute garbage, in so many ways. As far as I can see it's far from obvious that your site is an affiliate site - and probably not classed as one (even if it actually is).

It sounds like your doing all the right things though so you just need to stick with it. Paz mentioned 1000 words per optimised page, and I can see where he's coming from. I don't completely agree - but it does depend on how the site is constructed. Your site is er..."structure heavy" for want of a better way to put it - so Paz is quite right in your case. You need more text than HTML code - a lot more.

I've been having a look at your meta data on a selection of pages, and for the most part it appears your on the right tracks. Excellent. In my opinion, you may want to revise some of your page titles. I hasten to add, this isn't something I would rush into - and I wouldn't normally recommend it unless they are glaringly bad. However, if you look at your titles from a language perspective - they help you as much as they hinder you because of your company/website name. I think the word "guaranteed" (when it's in your title) might actually hinder you. Just IMHO of course - but I'd put money on it. ;)

... and am working on it! thanks BSolveIT. Am applying as per latest ...tips.doc ;-) but I've only done a few pages, so give me a few days before you take another peek.. K? later...

what tools are you guys using to see what pages you have indexed so far? I've been using market leap and doing manual Link:www.site.com but looking for other ways to see how my indexing is going

Hi fourthring

All you need to do is use the "site:" directive/command on either Google, Yahoo or MSN. They will each show you different results of course. If you website address was for example www.abc123.com, then you would go to google maybe and in the search box enter site:www.abc123.com

On Google though, you may want to go through the results you find to establish how many pages are in the main index, and how many are in the supplemental index (show after each URL in green).

Let us know how you get on?

:)

That last update pretty much killed a site of mine and these results don't look any better so for those of you who are ranking well I say congrats. I also ask, how on earth are you doing it? :confused:

I noticed a ton of new traffic today from MSN great search terms.

You know, I made the changes to my titles and descriptors etc, and I have leaped in Google (well, from nothing to in the 20s for a few good, though not MAIN terms), but I have lost my first spot in MSN as a result... It's so disheartening trying to please them all the whole time, and just not getting there...
sigh..

so much to learn...

Thats great news, on the whole. I honestly wouldn't worry too much about the temporary loss of position in MSN - it almost certainly is just temporary. it might take a week or two, but it will come back without any intervention from you.....more than likely. MSN is funny like that.

8-|

:D hey there B!
Could you look at my latest post please - serp description query in msn? need your expert opinion please.... By the way, in so many results now (good google ones) your listing for me is either right above or below it.. I BOW TO YOUR ONLINE WONDER-SKILLS!!!! awesome stuff!!!

Log into MSN messenger and give me a nudge?

;)

the SERP in MSN is ever changing, I am kinda fed up with that

That's why just some new websites only concentrate on MSN traffic. Some million search terms, can bring thousands of visitors per month from MSN alone.

I described my site map as site_map rather than as sitemap, when I created it.
I wonder which is more search engine friendly, my version or lineops version, who has described his as sitemap (see above post.)

Well he's a she last time I looked, LOL, but I would have preferred sitemap rather than site_map though. But you're in luck because "_" "|" and other such characters are ignored and it's my feeling that your site_map will be read as a sitemap. For example, I have inherited pages called "A-Z search" that are clearly sitemaps, and I'm pretty sure have been treated as such.

Cheers,
Paz.

Oops wrong sex, anyway thanks Paz

HEY! I'm happy that in todays world of male domination (in general) of this genre of marketing that you thought I might be male - compliment actually ;-)

but PAZ!!!, my knight-in-shining-armour as always - thanks for clearing it up...

I'm not one who would be able to 'carry the male persona' terribly far!

should I blush, curtsey, or just pivot on my nicely turned ankle and exit gracefully with a sweep of my skirts! all of which I am quite happy (and capable) of doing... men have their place, I have mine, and occassionally we cross - and maybe seo might be one... time will tell.

I know there are way clever ladies out there, with major seo and progammiong knowledge - and I take their advice as I do the men..

no competition, just looking for who has the best, when and why. and you know, dominance doesn;t mean best, but I have yet to find a SE lady that in total beats a man... no offence, just a fact... [and I include 'woman' in the term 'lady' here... I want to keep it respectable..;-)]

you know, i belong to loads of forums, but this one is 'home'... that makes sense to me as a women... but is probably namby-pamby crap to you guys... HEY.. I'm a chick.. let me have my emotions! ;-)...

.........k?

tee-hee...

ok - going a bit far... but here you go....
this is supposed to be funny...I think it is, though a bit riske.. I got it from my mother....hmmmmmm.....

A bus in London stops and 2 Barbadian men get on. They sit down and engage in an animated conversation.

The lady sitting next to them ignores them at first, but her attention is galvanized when she hears one of them say the following:

"Emma come first.
Den I come.
Den two asses come together.
I come once-a-more!
Two asses, they come together again.
I come again and pee twice.
Then I come one lasta time."

The lady can't take this any more, "You foul-mouthed sex obsessed pig, "she retorted indignantly. "In this country. we don't speak aloud in Public places about our sex lives."

"Hey, coola down lady," said the man.

Who talkin' abouta sex? I'm a justa tellin' my frienda how to spell ' Mississippi'.

A bet might say you're gonna read this again

Well i lost few good postions on MSN.

LOL.. Indeed!

I think there are quite a few women prominent in SEO, they're just less "in your face", competitive, egotistical, opinionated, fired up on testosterone - and all those other nice things. The SEO field could definitely use more women for sure though!

ok Paz.. if I admire you any more my hubby might get concerned! Thanks for the objective, accurate and humorous take on everything.. it's valued... I guess the fact that my dad is Barbadian made that funny for me, his family was deported there in the - was it late 17 hundreds or early 18 hundreds? ANYHOO, the 'indentured scottish slave labour' ended up doing quite well for itself in the carribean as far as my fam goes.. though nothing in the IT field... so those of us since migrating to Canada via South Africa (in the late 1990s and early 2000's have some work to do eh?!... the whole Boer issue is not a great one for my fam-dam either - that would be my moms side... and yet I married a Brit... go figure!

SO - hoping to buy a home somewhere - you know - Canada, UK, South Africa, Barbados... wherever the passport may take us kind of thing... and be the first of a few generations to actualy stick down roots somewhere... I have actually started a blog... I want my kids to be a bit more settled, hence the SEO attempt to start 'making something' of myself'

.. did cut it as an economics lecturer, but the grief, the politics and the crap pay... ? nah - rather be trying this.. and I think in my own small way with help I'm doing it right and getting somewhere... :-) I do get letters from ex students though - and its gereat to see how they're doing.. wow that makes me sound ancient... still early 30s... now is that young in this game... or is that just positively ancient.. and what AM I going to do when they make proper html, php whatever progamming a part of a 'proper' SEO's resume requirement... eeep...