Thanks to Rox of Marketing Defined for the heads-up on this excellent article on MSN Search Engine Beta Optimization Techniques.
Not just my blogs, but also my websites have been doing very well in MSN search and I have been trying to figure out why.
Coming back to the MSN search article by Wayne Hurlbert (a must-read author IMHO), Wayne recommends using a more holistic approach that stresses most of the well known accepted SEO best practices techniques for MSN.
Think in terms of overall good optimization practices, and your site will score high rankings in the new MSN search engine.
This is exactly what I use and recommend as a matter of habit – for all SEs, not just MSN. I don’t have the time to do extensive testing, so I usually cover all my bases when it comes to optimization. It’s worked brilliantly for me so far. 
To know exactly how I go about it, get yourself a copy of my search engine optimization guide, Number One In Your Niche.
Wayne goes on to state that -
As with the other major search engines, MSN Search requires good relevant content, and quality incoming links featuring keyword rich link anchor text. That said, there are some differences and similarities with Yahoo and Google’s preferences.
He also stresses the need for good keyword rich content.
The MSN algorithm values content very highly, and even allows for heavier than Google permissible levels of keyword density. In many ways, MSN Search is a content oriented website owner’s dream.
Relevance of theme and topic appears to be very important to MSN, as it is becoming for Google optimization. There are also additional considerations for levels of on page keyword density that differ somewhat from Google.
Like Yahoo’s algorithm, MSN is usually more tolerant of somewhat higher keyword densities. On the other hand, MSN seems to strongly dislike keyword stuffing, and will drop a site’s ranking accordingly.
Make certain that each page has unique title tags related to the most important keywords on the page.
I believe this is one reason my blogs are doing so well on MSN. Blogs (when written with basic SEO principles in mind) are naturally keyword-rich, themed content pages, which makes them ideal for SEs that give importance to on-page factors.
Keep in mind that content not only provides direct immediate value in the search engine results pages (SERPs), but also indirectly over the longer term, in the form of incoming natural links.
Another aspect of optimizing for MSN search is the importance of keyword-rich anchor text.
Maintaining your important keywords on the incoming and internal on site link anchor text is important. That link text definitely requires mixing and variation to appear as natural as possible when crawled by the MSN spider.
MSN places a different emphasis on various link types from the Google algorithm, however. Internal site links are important to MSN.
Be sure to link extensively within the site, using strong link anchor text thematically related to the content of the receiving page.
While Google might only give full link credit to one internal link, with the others receiving much less, MSN appears to be much more generous in that regard.
While Google has lowered the value of site wide links, MSN gives them very high marks. Instead of crediting only the first one, as Google does, MSN considers all incoming links to have values, and rewards them accordingly.
Now although the blogs I mentioned earlier have very few incoming links from other sites, the only significant links being site wide links from my own websites, the inbound links do have the most important keywords in the anchor text.
So I figure that while a number of links from different websites is not as important as it is to Google, the anchor text does matter.
Recommendation: Link sitewide to your blogs from your own sites and/or from a few high-PR article sites using optimized link anchor text, and your page should get a good ranking in MSN.
Don’t ignore getting links from third-party websites however. It’s a good idea to cover all your bases.
Wayne also states that meta tags are important to MSN search.
Like Yahoo, MSN Search seems to still place some importance on meta tags. Long fallen into disuse because of their lack of benefit in Google, dusting off some meta tags appropriate for each page might be beneficial as well.
He also talks about the importance of clean HTML coding.
Clean coding is a must with MSN Search, since its spider has a strong preference for well written code. If a website’s coding is poorly written, it appears as if MSN Search downgrades the site’s search rankings heavily.
This may be another reason why blogs rank higher, because blog pages are usually light on code and heavy on text.
A well designed site map with good link text will ease the MSN spider crawl of the site and ensure that all pages are indexed.
Recommendation: Make sure your blogs have links to your archives and previous posts clearly accessible to spiders.
For more information, read my article on Search Engine Optimization for Blogs
# posted by Priya Shah @ 6:18 PM
