When MSN first came out with its new search engine I had high hopes. I thought MSN would give Google a serious run for their money. Well, I do like MSN’s search engine, but it’s still got a way to go to be a formidable search source. The main reason for this is that their algorithm is all over the place. There’s no stability at all. One day you’re riding high on the first page and the next you’re on the 9th page. A couple weeks later you’re back to the 3rd page. Every time I attempted to figure out the basic workings of their search engine the SERPs completely change. Anyway, MSN evidently rolled out a new algorithm just a week ago or so and this is what I’ve found works in MSN:

• Put your keyword phrase in the title tag… even put it in there twice, but make sure it is at the start of the title tag
• Use your keywords in the file names of jpegs and gifs, CSS classes, etc.
• Definitely place your keywords in header tags at the top of the page before your body text
• In the body copy bold and italicize your keywords through out the text
• Definitely make a sitemap and place a link to it at the top of your page. In your sitemap use your keyword phrases in the links to all your pages
• Don’t worry too much about backlinks. I know Google lives for backlinks, but MSN will give you a top position with very little backlinks for even competitive keyword phrases
• In your footer navigation, and if possible, in your main navigation, use your keyword phrases

Well, that’ll just about do it. If you’ve found other things that work please leave me some comments so I can try them out.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 6th, 2005 at 8:55 pm and is filed under Design Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.