MSN Reinclusion Request

One of my sites was de-indexed by MSN about two weeks ago. I did some research and found a way to submit a reinclusion request. I have started this thread to explain what I did, and to give updates on how the request is progressing. I submitted the request on April 27 about 9 PM.

Originally, I though my site disappearred only to return a few days later even stronger. Have you heard this before? Although this does happen, in this case, the keywords I was ranking for had a MAJOR cleansing. Most of the sites using redirects were either de-indexed or they were pushed down in the results. Most of the websites on the first page contained Fortune 500 companies. Whatever was done was very different from anything else I had seen.

After two weeks, I have finally decided to just face this head on, and not wait another day. I believe the ability to submit a reinclusion request to MSN may become very valuable in the future. If anyone has something helpful to add please do.

 

Recently i had a site which i thought was de-indexed by msn. I search for the domain and it was not available. Then i emailed them asking if my site was removed and they replied:

Not long after, my site was back ranking better. Since you have asked for a reinclusion, the only thing you can do is wait.

 

It is now more than one month that one of my sites has been deindexed. I contacted them and just got a generic response. Still it is nowhere.

I don't think there is a "reinclusion" policy there. If you find something please let me know.

 

What i did was email them at and ask if my site is classified / reported as spam. Here's a link to their reinclusion page.

 

Thanks sakuragi
I didn't know that.

 

I sent a communication to MSN. Using their Support Form located at:

http://support.msn.com/contactus.aspx?productkey=search&locale=en-us

I did this so I would get a response for a Support Representative. I want to document the exact procedure based on information received directly from MSN.

About 12 pm on 04/28, less than 15 hours after I submitted my request, a MSN Support Representative sent me a very personal and informative reply.

The representative stated that she understood my concern and apologized for the inconvenience. The e-mail stated that websites are sometimes removed if they are reported as spam. I was instructed to send an e-mail message to if I believed my site was reported incorrectly.

In addition, I was instructed to visit the link below for further information on how to reinclude my website in MSN Search index.

http://search.msn.com/docs/siteowner.aspx?t=SEARCH_WEBMASTER_PROC_ReincludeYourSite.htm

As you can see, MSN does have a reinclusion procedure. To summarize, the procedure is to e-mail your request for reinclusion to .

Based on my experience so far, contacting Support may not be a needed step in this procedure. Once I again I did want to get the procedure directly for MSN and Share the results here.

I wrote a very pleasant letter stating the user features of my site. I explained the uniqueness of the site, and other user values I deemed relevant about the site. I will post the e-mail in a future update if my reinclusion request is successful.

The only other thing I did prior to this that may or may not be relevant. I submit the site to the MSN Adcenter Pilot Program for Approval. The site was approved for the Pilot Program about two days ago, and I gave away the 10 invitation on this board yesterday and today. I figured something might come up doing the site review process that would be revealing. I do not know their standards, but I do not think they would approve a spam website into the program.

I did not mention this in my request, nor would I assume that it would have much bearing. However, I do not think my site is a spam site, and I would not have push forward with this reinclusion request if it had been denied without making improvements. I am not stating this is a needed step. It is something I did. In addition, I want the traffic and was been thinking about even before my site was de-indexed.
Summary:

For Reinclusion into MSN Search, prepare a reinclusion letter and submit it to:



Exact Steps I took:

1. Submitted site for approval with MSN Adcenter at: https://adcenter.msn.com/
Approval took one week. Submitted 04/18, and Approved 04/25.

2. Submitted MSN Support Ticket on 04/27, using form at: http://support.msn.com/contactus.aspx?productkey=search&locale=en-us
Receive reply within 24 hours with instructions for reinclusion.

3. Wrote and Submitted Reinclusion Request on 04/28, sent to:

I hope this clears up any questions concerning MSN Reinclusion Requests. I will update the thread when I receive a reply or my site is re-indexed.

 

Humm...
Thanks krjewellers

I look forward to hearing good news from you.

.

 

Hey KR,

A very interesting thread, and it sounds like MSN has responsive Customer Support, which is reassuring. (I've never contacted them before.) I'll be interested to hear the outcome of your situation.

Sam

 

Wow, MSN Webspam just contacted me by e-mail, and told me exactly what the problem is with my website. I will update this thread with the information after I fix the problem and resubmit my request.

 

I have not completed the corrections to my site, but I needed a break. I have to work with each page of the site one at a time. I am adding PHP Includes so I can update the entire site by updating the PHP Includes in the future. First, I am posting a copy of the reinclusion letter I sent as a sample. I would consider it successful, and hopes it give a person in a similar position some ideas. MSN Webspam replied to my request within one business day. I sent a request to them at about noon on Friday, April 28, and I received a reply the following business day, Monday, May 1, about 11 am stating why my site was de-indexed or banned. In addition, they stated exactly what I needed to do to be reincluded in their search results. MSN’s Customer Service has been excellent. In the next update, I will post their response, and reason why, MSN Webspam stated my site was de-indexed or banned. Here is the letter I sent to MSN Webspam for reinclusion:

To whom it may concern,

I am requesting reinclusion of my website: http://www.WebsiteAddressWasHere.com

On or around April 13, my website, http://www.WebsiteAddressWasHere.com was de-indexed by the MSN Search Engine. When I type site:www.WebsiteAddressWasHere.com the following is returned:

* We couldn't find any results containing site:WebsiteAddressWasHere.com. Consider: site:www.WebsiteAddressWasHereS.com

I do not use any redirects for this site. This site is one of a kind. I constructed this site by hand. This site is done in html. I either have written the content, or have republished the content with the writer's consent, usually by providing a link to their site. There are no copyright or trademark infringement issues with this site.

I have recently added a RSS feed that I broadcast industry related articles using XML and PHP for Firefox users. At first, I thought my site was removed because of one of the changes I had made to the site, but I have been unable to make additional changes to the site to have it reincluded, even though the MSNBot visits my site on a daily basis.

I have made this site a resource for the users. Please review my site and reinclude it in the Search Results. This site is just under 280 pages. I am continuously making changes to improve the site, usually one page at a time. I update this site usually two or three times a week. WebsiteAddressWasHere.com is one of the first sites I made. I am a little attached to it.

Please reinclude my site in MSN's Search Results. Thank you in advance.

Sincerely,

KRJeweller

 

one of my sites had been deindexed for about 40-50 days, just today I noticed the home page has appeared again. I wonder if this is a good sign or not.

.

 

Hi KR,

A very well-worded letter, so I'm not surprised that it received a favorable response. Thanks for posting it, and I'm sure it will help others in their endeavors, as well.

Sam

 

Firstly, thanks Webfreedom much appreciated.

I finished updating my site and informed MSN Webspam that the correction has been made. Here is the reason stated for de-indexing or banning my website:

Your site appears to be participating in a link exchange and has some link stuffing on the site which is considered spam. Please contact us once you have removed the spam.

The main portion of this site is 11 pages. To build it up, I added three article sections about six months ago. Each section is made up of about 100 pages each. Since this site was established, I added links to my lesser established websites on these back pages. I added links for 5 of my lesser established websites, 3 of my blogs for a total of 8 links in the footer area below the main page on all of these pages.

It seemed like a good idea at the time, and it was working great before this happened as the three main pages for the articles were each updated to PR 6 on the last update and most of the sites I had linking to it are now PR4 or PR5.

The network referred to is my network of websites. This website does not participate in any other link exchange. I removed all of the links.

I did not ask any other questions. I simply complied with MSN Webspam’s request, and informed them that it was done. I did not want to complicate the situation, as my goal is to get this site reincluded in MSN Search. I used a straightforward letter to do this. I will post that letter if it was successful. I will update this thread when I get a response or my site is reincluded in the MSN Search results.

 

Hey KR,

Very interesting, and I look forward to hearing how MSN responds to the changes you made. It doesn't seem right (to me, anyway) to penalize a site for linking to other sites owned by the same Webmaster. Conventional businesses do this type of "linking" all the time, without threat of penalty. Ultimately, however, I think you're smart to play by their rules, as inclusion in their index will probably be more beneficial than linking to your other sites.

Thanks for a very informative and beneficial thread.

Sam

 

This has been a very interesting thread. I too have a site that was suddenly wiped from MSN-existance about a month ago.

It certainly isn't a SPAM site, but I do cross-link with my other sites. Maybe I'm being targeted for the same "infraction".

That pisses me off just thinking about it.

 

My site has been re-indexed.

I have been waiting to confirm that my site was re-reviewed by MSN Webspam. I tracked their first visit to my website, but they either checked the updates I made to my website via another method, or my tracking system missed their visit, or they did not re-check the website. I can only stated for sure that I have not noticed a second visit using my tracking system.

However, my site has been re-indexed. On May 2, one day after MSN Webspam's replied to my reinclusion request, my index page was re-indexed in MSN Search. On May 7, after all the updates were made to my website, an additional 5 pages were re-indexed. Yesterday, May 17, another page was added for a total of 7.

I was debating on if I would write MSN Webspam a follow-up e-mail. After another page was added yesterday, I have decided against that. The problem now is that, although my website appears if you type - site:mydomain.com, it does not appear in search results for keywords.

So no traffic from MSN Search for over a month now, I hope it will show up in the search results at some point. As I do not see how I can ask MSN Webspam to re-index my site so it appears for the keywords I have targeted. I will simply wait and see what happens. Hopefully if MSN is filtering my site. They will lift the filter in the near future.

I will update this thread when my website starts to appear in search results.

 

Thanks for the update, KR, and it's good to hear that things are moving in the right direction. MSN may not be able (or willing?) to replace your position in the SERPs, but I'd guess that you'll end up where you were...eventually. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

Sam

 

My website does not show up in MSN Search again. This is not all bad as I now have a reason to follow-up with MSN Webspam. I did just that about 4 PM PST today, May 19.

I like to only post things that worked, but I believe something can be observed from my follow-up letter that did not work also. I wrote a letter on May 4, informing MSN Webspam that I had made the changes, but I did not ask for a reply. I think that was the error with that letter. If I had it to do again, when I completed the changes, I would have ask MSN Webspam if my site would be re-included in MSN Search. I made this correction in the letter I sent today.

MSN Webspam has been very responsive. I should know their position concerning my website with their next reply. I will update this thread at that time. Below is my e-mail sent today, my e-mail sent May 4, and MSN Webspam's e-mail received May 1:

Re: Reinclusion Request

To Whom It May Concern:

Today, May 19, 2006, I did a search using MSN Search for: site:mydomain.com.

Returned for search:

*We could not find any results containing site:www.mydomain.com. Consider: site:www.mydomains.com

On May 4, 2006, I completed the deletion of the links at the bottom of the pages of my website per the request of the representative that responded to my initial e-mail (see below). Has someone from your department verified that these changes were made? Will my website be re-included in MSN Search? Please let me know, as I am very interested in knowing if my site will be re-included. Thank you in advance.

Sincerely,

Krjewellers


Krjewellers <krjewellers@mye-mailprovider.com> wrote:

To whom it may concern,

I have completed removing all of the links at the bottom of each page that they appeared on my website. Please review my website to verify the spam has been removed. Please re-include my website in MSN's Search Results. Thank you in advance.

Sincerely,

Krjewellers

MSN Search Spam Reports <webspam@microsoft.com> wrote:

Your site appears to be participating in a link exchange and has some link stuffing on the site which is considered spam. Please contact us once you have removed the spam.

Thank you,

MSN Search

 

krjewellers

Many thank for an interesting thread - I was looking into msn search and came across this. Good to know, thanks for sharing!

 

It has been two week, but I got a reply from MSN Webspam today. It is below:

Your site is using spam techniques and has been excluded from our index as a result. Please contact us once you have removed all spam.

MSN Search

I have e-mailed them asking for a specific example. I will post their reply. Just so everyone here knows. I am very interested in what is being considered spam on my site at this point.