Big MSN Live Search update give me your feedback
Live Search has had the biggest update since 2005 this week and from initial reports it seems to be good for users but bad for webmasters.
Check this result for BlogStorm. Why would a sub page ever be more useful than the homepage for a query like this? Why should some content behind a paywall be ranked about my site? Why do they trust Technorati so much?
Check this as well. Where is the Search Engine Land homepage?
I’m also seeing a lot of sites stop ranking for their own names and title tags, kind of like when Google gives out a penalty.
How has this update affected you? Please post in the comments below.
Patrick Altoft is Director of Search at Branded3, a Leeds SEO & Digital Agency specialising in SEO, Web Design, Development & Social Media.
Comments
Read the 7 comments below, or add your own!
My sites ‘name’ (Simplehelp) shows up as #1. Using that same MSN search for my name, my Mashable profile shows up first. Which is a bit odd. At least most of the first few results (for my name) are relevant to me, not the guy in the UK that shares my name.
Searching for the phrase that Google ranks my site as having the #1 result for, “flac to mp3″, brings my site up as the 8th result. In the “related searches” box, if you select “convert flac to mp3″ (the first suggestion for related searches) it brings up my post as #1.
At the end of the day, I don’t suspect this will bring me any more than the minimal visits I already get from MSN.
i am ranking in first page for all the keyphrases in my title.So the results i am getting is about the same.
I’m right on top for “joe tech”, but if I search for “joetech”, I’m behind joetech.cn for some reason.
Joe, are you looking at the new results? I see you in fifth.
I have taken a hit in the MSN Live SERPs, not really fussed though the traffic was negligible.
For the term ‘bloghash’ I still rank#1, but wait! When I search using ‘bloghash.com, I see that there are over 1,700 results but Live displays only 2 per page. Kinda strange to me! Patrick, any insight into this?
I have a site http://www.directholidaylets.com that has been doing well for lots of keywords across the top 3 search engines.
It was also doing well on msn until they did their update. Now, i dont rank anywhere for any of them anymore, not even for the domain name.
There is also just the homepage that has been indexed.
Very strange and bloody annoying.
I disagree that just a few hits from MSN is not very important. When you have a business EVERY hit is important.
Still doing well in the top 2 thank god.
Rob