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Now that MSN has removed the wraps on its new search engine (beta.search.msn.com), intended to compete with both Google and Yahoo, the obvious question on the minds of SEO people everywhere is: what algorithm is MSN going to use for their pagerank calculations?

Microsoft is being predictably coy: their FAQ states: “The MSN Search ranking algorithm analyzes factors such as page contents, the number and quality of sites that link to your pages, and the relevance of your site’s content to keywords. The algorithm is complex and never human-mediated.”

Nonetheless, there are some useful tips that give you a little bit of insight into how MSN is approaching search. This is all quoted from their site, and broken into three categories.

Technical Recommendations

• Use only well-formed HTML code in your pages. Ensure that all tags are closed, and that all links function properly. If your site contains broken links, MSNBot may not be able to index your site effectively, and people may not be able to reach all of your pages.
• If you move a page, set up the page’s original URL to direct people to the new page, and tell them whether the move is permanent or temporary.
• Make sure MSNBot is allowed to crawl your site, and is not on your list of web crawlers that are prohibited from indexing your site.
• Use a robots.txt file or meta tags to control how MSNBot and other web crawlers index your site. The robots.txt file tells web crawlers which files and folders it is not allowed to crawl.
• Keep your URLs simple and static. Complicated or frequently changed URLs are difficult to use as link destinations. For example, the URL www.example.com/mypage is easier for MSNBot to crawl and for people to type than a long URL with multiple extensions. Also, a URL that doesn’t change is easier for people to remember, which makes it a more likely link destination from other sites.

  Dave’s comment: In case MSN didn’t notice, the majority of traffic to a site are from search results, so the complexity of a URL doesn’t matter as much as they are saying here. It’s an interesting insight into their ranking criteria, imo.

Content Guidelines

• In the visible page text, include words users might choose as search query terms to find the information on your site.
• Limit all pages to a reasonable size. We recommend one topic per page. An HTML page with no pictures should be under 150 KB.
• Make sure that each page is accessible by at least one static text link.
• Create a site map that is fairly flat (i.e., each page is only one to three clicks away from the home page). Links embedded in menus, list boxes, and similar elements are not accessible to web crawlers unless they appear in your site map.
• Keep the text that you want indexed outside of images. For example, if you want your company name or address to be indexed, make sure it is displayed on your page outside of a company logo.

You can learn more at the MSN Search Site Owner Help. Competition is always good, so it’ll be interesting to see what theories arise about how they’re ranking and ordering search results!