June 2005 MSN Search Update & Neural Net Tech

[ephricon]

For one of my clients I just noticed alot more traffic and correspondingly (word?) improved rankings for some reasonably competitive terms. This is well deserved IMO as its a great site and extremely relevant, but I have to question why all the good news now where as two days ago the top 10's were top 30's and traffic was much lower. Small sample size but today and yesterday MSN traffic is up on this one site by a two to three times what I would normally expect.

Anyone else notice anything?

[CaseyC]

I wish we were as fortunate as you... we are seeing a steady decline in our MSN numbers. Our indexed pages have been cut by nearly 60% this week and they are dropping daily. We have experienced very little movement in Google or Yahoo, but MSN has gone straight down the tubes for some reason.

[JohnW]

Something is going on with many of my sites too, not good or bad but noticeable. I am seeing pages disappear from the top 30 (didn’t check any deeper) but in most case are being replaced in similar position by other pages from the same site. And some pages have improved, some new pages have made an appearance.

[mickisdaddy]

My MSN experience has been up and down in the number of pages in their index. At one time my site was up to 2,000 indexed pages, then it dropped down to about 700. I am now back up to about 900. My site log shows MSNbot hitting my site every day. It seems like their index has a leak in it or something.

Edit
A lot of the pages that have been dropped were ranking pretty well for the term I was shooting for.

[CaseyC]

mickisdaddy, sounds like you are having the same problem we are. Did you make anychanges to your site to help get some of your pages back? When can not come up with anything else to do to help with this.

[mickisdaddy]

I did not really make any changes. The number of pages in the MSN index has just been like a yo-yo. MSNbot started indexing my site right about the time of my last major re-do of my site (about 4-5 months ago). The number of pages in their index started going up a little each week then all of the sudden bam it dropped by like 1,000 pages. It started to go up again and then bam it would drop back down.

I see MSNbot daily in my logs hitting like 100 or so pages a day I have not really looked at what pages are crawled versus what pages are in the index. I may have to analyze that and see what I can figure out. (ie what pages are actually making it into the index and if I can what pages are dropped).

[CaseyC]

Sounds like the exact same thing we are experiencing. Please let us know if you find anything out.

Thanks
Casey

[Marcia]

Just today I noticed that the MSN traffic for one of my sites went through the roof. Best I can tell it started yesterday.

[fredmcain]

I wish we were as fortunate as you... we are seeing a steady decline in our MSN numbers. Our indexed pages have been cut by nearly 60% this week and they are dropping daily. We have experienced very little movement in Google or Yahoo, but MSN has gone straight down the tubes for some reason.

Casey,

I just joined this group. I was hoping someone on the group could give me some advice. We have a website with a Route 66 theme. It took us over a year and a half, but we finally worked up to page 2 on MSN based on the search words "Route 66". We were ecstatic when we made page one over this last weekend!

Then, yesterday morning much to my dismay, we got bumped all the way back to page 6. How and why can that happen? We changed nothing on our site that I'm aware of. My question is, is there anyone at MSN that we can complain to? Or, is there any recourse at all?

[dannysullivan]

MSN's just posted that they're using some new technology to rank results, so that may explain what people have been seeing. Details from MSN here: http://blogs.msdn.com/msnsearch/archive/2005/06/21/431288.aspx, and I've blogged some comments here: http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/050622-082709. In particular, they make mention of a neural network technology that may be similar to what this research paper (PDF file) describes: http://research.microsoft.com/~cburges/papers/ICML_ranking.pdf

[fredmcain]

Would it do any good if we all bombarded them with complaints? Of course, I guess those who saw their rating rise wouldn't have much to complain about.

But if someone really wanted to complain, what e-mail address should they use?

[Marcia]

Would it do any good if we all bombarded them with complaints? No, not if it's based on sites ranking because there would be a corresponding number of people satisfied with their new rankings.

Of course, I guess those who saw their rating rise wouldn't have much to complain about.Exactly, they'd say "Great job, MSN!"

[fredmcain]

No, not if it's based on sites ranking because there would be a corresponding number of people satisfied with their new rankings.

Exactly, they'd say "Great job, MSN!"

Marcia,

It's just frustrating to us. We went through this very same thing on Google. After about a year, we finally worked our way up from page 50 or something absurd to page 5. Then Google made somekind of a change and botta-boom! We got slammed back to page 18. Now, 6 months later, we've worked our way back up to page 5 again where we hope to remain until Google makes their next change.

Now, MSN has done the same thing. I don't think this is fair. For example, should a reference to a mass transit website that just happens to have a bus or trolley line tagged "Route 66" be ahead on a search engine of a website that is really about Route 66, The Highway? That just doesn't make sense to me.

Is there something that we should be doing different that we're not doing? I'd like to get on page one (or at least page two) and stay there!

Regards,
Fred M. Cain

[lorenbaker]

Definately seeing some keen results in the new MSN RankNet rankings. Looked a bit more into the paper that Danny linked to and trying to pinpoint some patents on the technology.

Two Microsoft patents dealing with RankNet and Neural Net technology which may be relevant to RankNet:

The first patent identified is Method for Scanning Digital Info Content (http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.html&r=2&f=G&l=50&d=PG01&p=1&S1=%28%28%28%28neural+AND+net%29+AND+search%29+AND +engine%29.BIS.+AND+microsoft.AS.%29&OS=spec/(neural+and+net+and+search+and+engine)+and+an/microsoft&RS=(SPEC/(((neural+AND+net)+AND+search)+AND+engine)+AND+AN/microsoft)) which mentions neural net in the Abstract :

Computer-implemented methods are described for, first, characterizing a specific category of information content--pornography, for example--and then accurately identifying instances of that category of content within a real-time media stream, such as a web page, e-mail or other digital dataset. This content-recognition technology enables a new class of highly scalable applications to manage such content, including filtering, classifying, prioritizing, tracking, etc. An illustrative application of the invention is a software product for use in conjunction with web-browser client software for screening access to web pages that contain pornography or other potentially harmful or offensive content. A target attribute set of regular expression, such as natural language words and/or phrases, is formed by statistical analysis of a number of samples of datasets characterized as "containing," and another set of samples characterized as "not containing," the selected category of information content. This list of expressions is refined by applying correlation analysis to the samples or "training data." Neural-network feed-forward techniques are then applied, again using a substantial training dataset, for adaptively assigning relative weights to each of the expressions in the target attribute set, thereby forming an awaited list that is highly predictive of the information content category of interest.

And Chris Burges, mentioned in the MSN Search Blog post and head author of the Learning to Rank with Gradient Descent paper, was one of the co-authors of this patent application which describes neural network; "System and method for identifying content and managing information corresponding to objects in a signal. (http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220040260682%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20040260682&RS=DN/20040260682)" The abstract:

An "interactive signal analyzer" provides a framework for sampling one or more signals, such as, for example, one or more channels across the entire FM radio spectrum in one or more geographic regions, to identify objects of interest within the signal content and associate attributes with that content. The interactive signal analyzer uses a signal fingerprint extraction algorithm, i.e., a "fingerprint engine," for deriving traces from segments of one or more signals. These traces are referred to as "fingerprints" since they are used to uniquely identify the signal segments from which they are derived. These fingerprints are then used for comparison to a database of fingerprints of known objects of interest. Information describing the identified content and associated object attributes is then provided in an interactive user database for viewing and interacting with information resulting from the comparison of the fingerprints to the database.

[hiero]

I'm finding that MSN is finding new pages and changed pages much quicker than Google or Yahoo. Is anyone else seeing the same?

[bethabernathy]

I just went through my reporting for May / June and all my sites are still ranking on the 1st page of MSN for designated search phrases (most in position 1-5). I did notice on 6/15 that one client had their positioning drastically drop, but as of today their position is back to normal.

In looking at what search engine brought in the most traffic, overall MSN provided 1/3 of what of Google and Yahoo did (this is for May, so I guess that doesn't count). I'll look at June at the beginning of July.

Whatever their doing - no problem for me - except for on and around 6/15/05.

[niceland]

Hi all

I have been checking out the MSN after the new update and it is much better and results are more relevant. Some of my sites are doing better and some worse but overall much better.

On the blog MSN says they are developing and improving. With this speed of improvement MSN will soon go past Google. MSn is already indexing faster, and deliver very relevant results and it is more fun to use with all the options, and last but not least I can not see any evidence MSN penalize sites in the same way as Google and Yahoo.

[sem4u]

I am not seeing a huge amount of changes yet, but it is good to see inanchor and linkdomain searches available. They just need to get the anchor text search to work correctly now...

[PhilC]

What has to be realised is that search engines never get it right, and they rarely improve their results via algo changes. For instance, Google came to the forefront because of the relevancy of its results.Since then, they've made major changes that have had the effect of shuffling the serps around and generally pushing some less relevant results nearer the top at the expense of some relevant ones - but they've never improved the serps, imo - they've only caused them to deteriorate bit by bit.

The MSN engine is less that a year old, but already they are incorporating a new ranking technology. It's something that search engines feel they have to do, and, in the long term, they do have to do it. So they shuffle the serps around, cause some very relevant pages to sink, and probably cause some other relevant pages to rise along with some non-relevant pages. It's par for the course, and we have to live with it. It gets annoying when relevancy takes a back seat to new ways of ranking pages (e.g. I posted about some post-Bourbon Google results where 10 of the top 20 have nothing to do with the searchterm), but we have to accept that it happens, that the engines really do get things wrong, and we have to work from whatever position we find ourselves in at any particular time.

Having said that, they do provide us with links to tell them about poor results, so there is something that we can do. It isn't going to make any difference in the short term, though, so we still have to accept what happens, and get on with whatever situation we find ourselves in.

[stereoview]

Current thinking has said that meta tags are no longer paid attention by search engine spiders. Not true. Definitely not true!

If you go to MSN and search "stereoviews" my sites come in #1, #2, and #10. #1 uses meta description below the listing. #2 uses top text and #10 uses meta keywords. It seems to choose different things for different listings! Weird huh?

So if you have been ignoring meta tags or not using literal descriptions and copious keywords, this could explain your changes in ranking. I have always used them and my rankings have always been great for the searches that matter to me.

David

[Jeff Martin]

I feel for those who lost positioning.

I can tell you that there is not silver bullet for getting/staying on page 1.

I have a client with state wide real estate schools (yeah...no competition there) who ranked out of the top 30 for half of their keywords and had some top 30 visibility for the other half. Now they are page one across the board for their main keywords. I stuck to plain white hat (I hate that term...I think low risk is more accurate) techniques:

1. Got the right keywords (and yes they were the competitive ones) by checking multiple resources:
- Google Adwords sandbox
- Google Suggest (beta - Google labs)
- Overture suggestion tool
- Word Tracker

2. Clean HTML using as few tables and cells as possible and using proper CSS styles. Also used CSS to allow me to properly structure the content (example: Hx tags, bullets, etc.) without affecting the design. Mad sure every page was found by SEs - solid internal link architecture.

3. Wrote and modified content with no regard to keyword density but to synonyms (but didn’t need a lot ~13 pages total).

4. Linked out to authoritive relative sites with good anchor text.

5. Great link building (not obsessive) from directories in only relevant categories (no regard to PageRank) and from other authoritive sites (including links from sites in the top 30). I used varying anchor text and didn’t pay much attention to the amount of links I was acquiring as they were on topic and not run-of-site.

[Artyom]

I see it's pretty much like designing a super sonic jet. When you test a new jet model at wind tunnel basically you get the same curves for your plan:-) I mean MSN follows Google path, now they take into consideration things similar to GG Local PageRank (comparing SERPs with each other) and using its logs to see on what actually people click. I will not be surprise if soon we'll hear about MSN program similar to 'Google's Secret Evaluation Lab':-)

[ErikSelberg]

Hey all,

Just a quick plug for our latest blog post on MSN Search that goes over the new operators Danny mentioned: http://blogs.msdn.com/msnsearch/

In particular, I hope I explain some of the mystery of how InAnchor: works (and doesn't work) and what you can do with Contains:.

I also didn't realize that the MSN folks didn't have a presence here as on other fine boards of the same topic... we've already set things in motion to change that. Look for posts from either myself or MsnAdvisor on a more regular basis.

Finally, in regards to SERPs changing position with our new ranking algorithm that uses RankNet --- all of the major engines are working hard to stabilize towards the "best" ranks, but of course we've all got a decent way to go before we're getting almost all queries almost completely correct. People often talk of taking one step back for two steps forward; I look at things as taking two million steps forward and a million steps back. Great for end users, but less ideal if you're one of those one million.

What helps us out the most is direct, actionable feedback. Gripes about "my site doesn't show up as high anymore" isn't super useful, as (a) we get a ton of them, and (b) we don't know why, and we can't look at all of them (see a). Maybe other sites are better and we promoted them --- that's what we always intend when one site is lowered. However, it could be that the sites that are better are spamming or optimising in some new way that unduly affects them. Or perhaps we just got some of 'em plain wrong. Whatever it is, please let us know why the site you care about is relevant to the query, and why some of the sites now supplanting the site are less relevant. The folks reading the feedback are technical, and I know this crowd is as well, so the more detail, the faster we'll be able to track down bugs and loopholes and fix 'em up. So click on that "Help us improve!" link on the bottom of every search page --- we do appreciate the feedback.

Thanks,
Erik Selberg
MSN Search

[Marcia]

I feel for those who lost positioning.So do I, many of us do. We've all been there at one time or another with one or another of the engines and it can be very hard to take.

I can tell you that there is not silver bullet for getting/staying on page 1.There isn't, things are always changing and there's no way to predict. But at last the movement goes both ways, so what goes down today could well be back up with the following update.

I have to say this update was unbelievably good to me. I'm in shock over it, there was never one bit of an attempt made to "optimize" for MSN. And I know from several years with my own and working with other people's sites that MSN can send killer traffic that converts well for certain niches, for a certain segment of the internet buying population.

All along it's been obvious that there are a few things that MSN *likes* a lot - VERY noticeably so - but if I could paint what I've noticed with a broad brush and describe it in just a few words, I'd have to say that using diverse vocabulary - including descriptives and synonyms - and having a site with what I could almost call a semantic cohesiveness that's almost like "theming" seems to work.

Aside from what some are saying about URLs laden with keywords, I've noticed that MSN has an almost uncanny ability to pick out different words on different parts of pages and figure out what the page is about.

[broomd]

MSN seems to be putting a lot more weight into the domain name right now.

Domain name will play into your favor........

[Marcia]

I was typing while you posted and missed your post altogether - belated welcome to SEW Forums, Erik!

Look for posts from either myself or MsnAdvisor on a more regular basis.We sure will, and the effort and willingness to establish friendly and informative communication is much appreciated.

[I, Brian]

Good to see you here explaining things as well, Erik - it's much appreciated, and I'm sure there will be further curious questions coming soon.

[PhilC]

I look at things as taking two million steps forward and a million steps back. Great for end users, but less ideal if you're one of those one million.I like that way of looking at it :)

Here we have a search engine rep who openly admits that their updates do cause some backward steps, and that their serps are not always ok - it's very refreshing!

[eZeB]

Marcia is right -- it is based on expanded vocabulary -- the results look like a modified LSI even though they are using different methods to get it. Sort of like bare bones LSI with all the academic stuff taken out.

I realize that isn't what they are doing -- extrapolating from the results sure look like it tho.