I think that everyone can agree that it is pretty easy to get good rankings on MSN if you know proper SEO. I think you will also agree that no matter how great your rankings are, you don't get much traffic from those rankings (compared to Yahoo and Google). All of us (including me) dedicate so much time trying to rank higher in the other 2 bigger search engines, Maybe we have been going about this all wrong. Maybe instead of trying to acheive top rankings in the #1 search engine, we should try to take the search engine we already have top rankings in and make them #1. Thats right, make MSN the most used search engine. How do we do it? Well first of all we could create buzz for MSN. Anytime we talk to someone about search engines, pitch MSN as the new best search engine. Talk about how they have surpassed Y and G and that they should definitely use them for searching. These people will in turn tell their friends about the "new best search engine" and so forth. If enough buzz is generated, maybe their share of the search engine pie will get bigger. What other ideas can you come up with to make MSN #1? (This post was written in jest, but if MSN became #1 it sure would be nice. Also, I have no affiliation with MSN, just really good rankings with them )
There's nothing you are going to be able to do to make a search engine the #1 search engine as long as their results are easily manipulated (and therefore not relevant).
MSN will be number one when they start returning the most relevant results not the one's that are the best at fooling them.
For most of my searches where I want relevant new information. I feel MSN does provide those results better then Y and G. Just a personal opinion and I know others disagree.
As I stated in my initial post I wrote that in jest, meaning it was a joke. I was simply making a point that if MSN got more searches I would get more traffic. There is no way Google will give up the top spot unless they do something really stupid, even Yahoo admitted that G is #1.
What do you mean "the ones that are the best at fooling them."? Do you mean the websites with the highest rankings? That's kind of a general statement dont you think?
I think Ask will be #2 in the near future. They are at least TRYING to be a search engine. Yahoo and MSN are, and will always be, portals. Yahoo's new home page looks disturbingly like MSN's. And I hate MSN's.
Ask will NOT be anything unless they partner with MSN or Yahoo. If we all switched our home pages to MSN.com it would help, but we all still go to google unless we are checking our own rankings
MSN (at this stage) don't really have a chance of getting to #1. Although I must say, that I do use Yahoo and MSN every time I need to find a "small site". Ex: If I am looking for the website of the local hardware store or any other "small player", I first try and find them on Google with a targeted keyword like "hardware store name suburb city" but if that doesn't work I move to MSN and Yahoo and usually find the stuff I am looking for there!
agree. it is difficult to find 'small sites' on the first page of google. When i search for topics on google search engine for some website help, i usually get old post of forums in the front page. Post as old as 2003. I will turn to msn. Bad thing about msn is it is easily manipulated.
I would disagree. The key with MSN is getting them to stay there. You might get a site there quick, but keeping it there? That is another story. Personally I have seen MSN's approach as one of letting the shit float to the top right way, then skiming off. Google tends to wait for updates to do this. Again, I disagree. I think many underestimate MSN greatly. MSN is far from "number one", but it is up there, a real contender IMHO. The thing to watch for is when the new OS finally comes out (hopefully 2nd quarter of this year). Watch 95% of the world run out and upgrade. I would be willing to bet that more than 75% of that crowd will be unknowingly thrust into MSN by default, as every installment of IE will no doubt be pointed there. Just wait for the OS update man.
I don't search for loans or online casinos.....something about loans and online casinos sounds funny as hell.
yes, but do people searching for online casino really expect an informative site or anything like that? I use MSN more then google now, since it is integrated in the IE7 adress bar. I think with Vista coming and IE7, they will almost double their traffic within a year.
do your really think that this will increase the IE usage that significantly? i don't think anyone who is currently using a (in my opinion) legitimate browser (i.e. opera, firefox, even netscape) will make the switch to IE7 just because of Vista (should it ever be released). it was mentioned before that the only time we use MSN to search is to check our own rankings (which i admit is true for myself) but I find the same thing to be true for IE, the only time I use it is to test my pages, or to make up for someone else's poor coding (i.e. not standards compliant). Whatever the gimmicks in the required search bars, I cannot see MSN making significant improvement through them, especially with the google and yahoo plugins available to even the simplest of web users.
Based on my webstats, Google and Yahoo by far outperform MSN as far as sending me traffic is concerned, however my rankings in MSN are by far better than the other 2. That is what I mean when I say that you don't get that much traffic "compared to Yahoo and Google". It is much easier to get ranked quickly in MSN but I have also seen with some of my older sites that they have the best rankings in MSN. Either way, the point is that more searches through MSN would benefit most of us.
Hang on people, when you say you use microsoft search are you talking about the search offered in search.msn.com? or www.live.com? The www.live.com will be the future of microsoft search. Its the ajax version that once it hits will replace the funtionality of there msn portal search. If you havent tried it, try it now and let me know what you think of its functionality. ps. i think its awesome especially how it uses ajax and refreshes adverts.