Domain age has fuck all to do with rankings. I have 5 year old sites that just refuse to perform in Google, and sites that are LESS THAN 2 MONTHS OLD ranking #1-3 for some *really* competitive terms, bringing in $x,xxx a month. There is a sandbox, but you won't find your site in it just because it's new. You'll find it in there because you cocked up and tripped a filter... Back to the original subject... Of course it makes sense. One search engine takes more variables into account than the other. Therefore making it harder to fulfil the ranking requirements.
I don't feel special at all, because I know MSN is very easy, but I'm always able to stand up above the rest very quickly when dealing with her
It's only easier to rank high on MSN, Google, Yahoo, etc. for those who are ranked on top. For all the other people, it seems really hard. So be happy with what you have.
Seems that nobody cares about the logic that this topic is based ie we can only have 10 urls on the first page ... .
Right. There are exactly the same amount of winners vs. losers in MSN as GOOGLE. Its just that people dont care as much about their MSN rankings. If MSN had 70% of the search market, it would be the (hard/competitive) one to rank in, no matter how simplistic the algo.
The logic it's based on is flawed. MSN is easier to rank on using SEO methods. Google is harder to rank on using SEO methods. Therefore, more of the top 10 slots on MSN will go to SEO'd sites than in Google's top 10. The mistaken assumption you're making is that the people who say "MSN is easier to rank with" are referring to ALL sites. They're not - they're referring to sites run by people who optimize them. Since not all sites are optimized, there may be the same number of winners and losers, but more of the losers are unoptimized sites and more of the winners are optimized ones.
Yes as mentioned in all posts here, google is much more "cut-throat". I think if you are optimizing for Google, you can almost guarantee that you will be ranked very well very early in MSN. Also MSn doesnt have as much of a link aging filter as google has and is rapidly snapping up new sites. Perhaps they are in a growth stage for their engine, to try and increase its index. Then they may clamp it down a bit more. But for now, it is very easy to rank well in. Brad