Well I have come to the conclusion that MSN and Live search have big time problems with the implementation of their new search strategies.

Before the launch of Live (www.live.com), I knew I could grab top rankings just as a byproduct of being 1st page in Google and Yahoo.  Many of those ranking were lost with their algorithm update and launch of Live.  At first, I thought it was something wrong with my SEO strategy.  I started tearing apart competitive ranking factors and comparing them to my sites.  The more I dig the more muddled became the logic behind how rankings were being achieved.  Then, I noticed that it was not just rankings that were changing, but Live was actually de-indexing the inside pages of websites in massive quantities.  Good solid competitors that I had been enjoying fighting against everyday for top ranking were literally disappearing from the "long tail".

Very frightening indeed!

Looking through the back rooms of Live, I had found a potential source for answers.  You might already be aware; Live has launched an interactive webmaster portal to give you real time feed back on how your sites are performing in MSN or Live.  Just go to this url and sign-up for the service (it is free):

http://webmaster.live.com/

The tools available are pretty basic, but it will give you a decent idea of how you are doing.  What was more important was my discovery of the webmaster forum (also available within the webmaster tools).  Not only were people able to ask questions, but there was a very active programmer from MSN named Jeremiah Andrick who was quickly answering those questions.  Right now, this is the best, most timely support I have seen…better than Google and Yahoo combined.  Unfortunately, there are 2 major proglems:

(1) The forum seems to be pretty new and not well known.  There is enough action on it to keep in manageable, but I think it will quickly become overrun with support questions.  So my advice is to get in now while you can.

(2) The forum is filled with webmaster all with the same question.  I have included part of one post as an example,

"My site has been listed on Google, Yahoo & MSN for as long as the business (nearly 3 years) and has good positions on Google & Yahoo.  It used to be top of its keyword searches in MSN for well over a year but since a week ago….nothing!!!!  Why?  I have mad no major changes to the site.  It's not the best site in the world but to be dropped out of the keyword searches completely is TOTALLY confusing!!  Not even a search on my business name returns anything!! No explanation for it!  I've searched SEO forums and some people are experiencing the same! My competitors sites (some worse than mine and also for spamming!) still apear in top keyword searches where we were placed. Can anyone shed some light or explain to be me why?"

Here is the usual response given in the forum:

"I have heard from a number of customers that they don't understand why their total pages indexed is low.  The basic answer is that, while MSNBot crawls billions of web pages, not every page is indexed. For a site to be indexed, it must meet specific standards for content, design, and technical implementation. For example, if your site’s link structure doesn't have links to each page on your site, MSNBot may not find all the pages on your site. Ensure that your site follows our indexing guidelines. These guidelines will help you place important content in searchable elements of the page. Also, make sure that your site doesn't violate any of the technical guidelines that can prevent site ranking. For more information about site ranking in web search results, see About website ranking."

Although this is a great answer from a search engine that wants to focus on great quality search results, it does not address why so many top quality sites have been penalized.  In other words, when you look at some of the sites requesting answers from MSN in the forum, you can easily see that these sites fully meet the standards listed above.

So, what is the real answer?

I am not fully sure….except for one thing.

The MSN team keeps including this small statement about not having the room to completely index sites.  They focus on the off page and on page "quality" score; yet, they keep on pointing out concerns about search capacity.

All I know is this problem is everywhere and it has not been getting any better (going all the way back to October).

This forum member said it the best,

"Fa Get About It…Many of us are in the same boat. My MSN traffic Stopped Cold at 10 am Pacific Time on Oct 1st. when they flipped the switch to the new Algo. I've posted the problem on this forum but have not read a concrete answer from Live Team. If you have G traffic…I wouldn't touch a page of your site trying to get on MSN serps. It's probably not your site if it's all white hat, it's a bug in the Algo. Hopefully we'll get some positive news soon (any news on this issue would be appreciated) because judging from the posts on this forum and other forums on the web…this boat is getting mighty full."

Anyways, I thought you should know.

All the best,

–Nicolas