MSN / Live search algorithm -

What MSN looks for in order to rank a site well - with a lot of changes since the release of Live, the offering has improved. But it may be too little too late, as traffic share amongst search engines has dropped below 10%, a portion of which is from windows users accidentally entering something in their url bar for instance.

1) Emphasis on single-page elements - in fact single page sites still have a good chance on MSN / Live

2) Susceptible to keyword stuffing (sometimes allows pages with loads of irrelevant text below the fold, as long as it is not invisible or cloaked)

3) Heavily favours the domain name itself and the keywords used in it, and the page name to a slightly lesser extent

4) Main measurement factors include
- Terms in the URL and title tag
- Domain name (to the point sometimes where a long domain with loads of keywords in it works too well).
- "Freshness of content" (it indexed our site within a day of going live!)
- Discovers new sites quickly and is prone to being flooded with duplicate content
- Does not appear to factor Google's preference for older sites (often prefers newer ones)
- Still suffers from a lack of relevancy in results
- Prone to listing duplicate content and has not fully devalued scraper sites (e.g.: Automated sites that copy content from other sites)

An overview of website guidelines for MSN/Live natural search results is available at
http://search.msn.com/docs/siteowner.aspx?t=GuidelinesforOptimizingSite.htm

Also, keep an eye on our SEO tips page and view our overviews of Google's Algorithm / Yahoo's algo / or the no longer Jeeved, Ask

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