9 replies to this topic

[Gary Bagshawe]

Hiya all, does anybody know for sure what is happening at msn.com?

For over a month now several sites that have had good ratings on msn.com have dropped from top 10 positions to just inside top 100!
If I do the same search on msn.co.uk the results are still in the top10.
is msn.com penalising the sites because they have a .co.uk ext or can anybody explain to me why msn.com has dropped the sites way down?

[MakeMeTop]

>is msn.com penalising the sites because they have a .co.uk ext

Simply put - yes, they are!

[SearchRank]

That's the way it should work for search portals that have country specific services such as MSN, Google, Yahoo, etc. They essentially use the same database or index and then filter results by the top level domain (.com, .co.uk, etc.). So in a US site, the .com's should take precedence over any country specific domain.

[robwatts]

That's the way it should work for search portals that have country specific services such as MSN, Google, Yahoo, etc. They essentially use the same database or index and then filter results by the top level domain (.com, .co.uk, etc.). So in a US site, the .com's should take precedence over any country specific domain

Perhaps so, but if a property has a truly international audience (as imo is the case with msn.com) then perhaps not.

[Gary Bagshawe]

ok, so msn.com are penalising the sites because of the .co.uk ext, so why when I do other searches for stuff on msn.com do I find .co.uk ext in the top 10?

[MakeMeTop]

It is a booster penalty - not a removal. If the site is considered an "authority" on a subject or a search phrase is geographically targeted it can garner enough ranking points to overcome the boosting of rival sites.

So, let us say that a .com page gets a +30 point booster for being a .com, but has little on-page content or has a low count of incoming links while the .co.uk scores a +60 point score for loads of relevant content and a high number of authoritive links. It will beat the .com. Of course, on MSN UK it will rule the roost because it gets the +30 boost giving it +90 points - but a higher scoring natural score of 91 from a .com will beat it there too.

This has been going on for some time, but the boost was just a couple of points, now they have turned the knob way up!

I have loads of .co.uk sites zapped on MSN.com for primary phrases, but still ranking for "widgets uk".

[Gary Bagshawe]

Thanks for that makemetop, Ive been going insane trying to work out the reasons for it. Cheers.

[AussieWebmaster]

I have loads of .co.uk sites zapped on MSN.com for primary phrases, but still ranking for "widgets uk".

And we all have so many of those widget uks... lol.
What it is doing is creating a domain name prejudice... I wonder if the people who control the .com registration are not pushing the issue a tad here and there.

Forget about racism or nationalism. dotism is around the corner!

[Thanol]

Wouldn't it be better for a searcher in the USA to find sites specifically from the USA first ahead of overseas sites.

[AussieWebmaster]

Wouldn't it be better for a searcher in the USA to find sites specifically from the USA first ahead of overseas sites.

You are presupposing that all .coms are US.
There would be a lot of work to filter it all. But many engines have started to offer or develop geo/local results so it could be coming.