MSN Search optimisation

Achieving high search engine rankings on MSN Search

MSN Search is a relative newcomer to the search optimisation field as this site used to display search results from the Inktomi search engine prior to Spring 2005, at which point it launched its much anticipated search spider and index. However, as MSN is a dominant web portal and part of the powerful Microsoft network, it remains one of the most important search tools that a site needs to target to ensure good coverage on the web.

The MSN Search tool is continuing to develop and is possibly going to grow its market share over the coming years as the main alternative to Google. It exhibits many of the same characteristics as Google and the search results are displayed in a similar fashion, although the ranking results can often vary quite widely from Google's due to the various factors being used by MSN Search.

Submitting a site to MSN Search.

MSN Search offers a free online submission form where you can enter the URL of a site ready for indexing. The MSN Search spider is also quite active and will index a site within a short period of time - around 1 month on average - if a site is linked from other established domains. MSN Search also implements regular updates and as it is still a relatively new database, the search listings can change quite frequently as the underlying algorithms are adapted.

MSN Search will deep index most websites, including framed and dynamic sites, although this may take several visits to be achieved.

Factors to consider for a high search engine ranking on MSN Search.

Like other search engines, MSN Search will focus on the content on a website's page to determine the relevant search term relevance, so the title and description metatags are important, alongside the actual page content.

Factors to consider to achieve a high ranking include:

• Keywords used within the Title tag
• Keywords used within the Description metatag
• Page content, position and emphasis of keywords
• The number of inbound hyperlinks from other relevant and quality websites
• Local search versions of MSN Search will also tend to boost the rankings of regional sites based on IP address.

To find out how your website can achieve a high ranking on MSN Search and the other top search engines, contact us now for more information or to request a FREE website assessment to see how well your site currently performs.

A brief history of the MSN search engine.

Learn more about getting a high ranking on the other main search engines with our tips for Google optimisation and Yahoo Search optimisation.