My grandmother can rank in MSN.

[Shawn]

Seriously, it's just that sad. If you haven't been alive since the new MSN was implemented, it's search algo consists strongly of link popularity and it doesn't take 8 months to rank, as it does in Google.

http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/ad-network/

If you don't know what the hell that is, you should. I have a referral URL for the tool, but, I like it so much, I don't even care to use it.

I'd boldly state that at least 80% (thousands) of the webmasters that use that DP tool rank in the top 5 in MSN for the terms they target, regardless of their competitiveness. Try it.

[Chris]

This network is undoubtedly headed for a ban. It isn't going to go unnoticed.

[darker]

we'll see. if it's banned I'm gonna lose alot of good sites..

[Mike]

This network is undoubtedly headed for a ban. It isn't going to go unnoticed.

But how? The links are just normal html ones, so I can't see how google or any other search engine can do anything about it.

[MarkB]

Funny thing is, one site that I promoted heavily through this was almightily dumped by Google on all the terms I was using it to promote - although people are still somehow finding it through Google :) Rankings are just picking up again now. MSN and Yahoo are still OK though.

[chromate]

I've avoided getting involved with this network. I just get a bad feeling about it. My rankings on MSN and Yahoo are pretty good anyway.

[nohaber]

MSN and Yahoo are years behind Google. They use general link popularity algos. Any link contributes to ranking. Google and Teoma try to recognize the really relevant to the query links (topic or keyword specific popularity). I doubt this network can get a site #1 on Google for really competitive keywords.

I guess Yahoo and MSN won't be able to use some form of topic specific popularity any soon. The only diff between them is that MSN seems to update its popularity score in real time.

I like to check out every site that I link to and avoid automated linking. I doubt the network will be banned. Just think that as soon as SEs improve their ranking algorithms these links won't contribute that much to ranking and will be regarded as irrelevant in most cases.

[Shawn]

Nohaber is right, I highly doubt this network can have a severe impact on Google rankings. I don't disagree with the notion that the network will gradually have less of an effect in Google, but, I don't believe the network will be banned.

The bottom line is: You can reach most top positions in MSN with this tool -- period.

[Chris]

Its basically the same thing Traffic Power did, that is put automated links on all client pages pointing to all other client pages. They got hit with the ban hammer.

Yes, the links are pure HTML, but if DP can write software that checks to see if a site has the code up, then I'm sure Google can as well.

Obviously, by some of the reported results, this is can be very powerful. Still, I would not use it to promote any mission critical sites. I just don't think its worth the risk.

[Shawn]

I absolutely agree with that last statement, Chris.

I no longer use this on my site -- simply because I don't want any liabilities. But, if you're the webmaster that makes a new site every couple of weeks, I think it'd be more than worth it with new sites.

Agreed?

[Mike]

Its basically the same thing Traffic Power did, that is put automated links on all client pages pointing to all other client pages. They got hit with the ban hammer.

Yes, the links are pure HTML, but if DP can write software that checks to see if a site has the code up, then I'm sure Google can as well.

Obviously, by some of the reported results, this is can be very powerful. Still, I would not use it to promote any mission critical sites. I just don't think its worth the risk.

I agree with your statement about not using it on critical sites, as obviously you dont want anything to jeopardize their success.

However, about Google taking this network down. Google gets the html of pages, not the code. They have nothing like that to work on. So how could they write anything?

[Chris]

It could be done. Maybe they'll check for links that change with every page view. Maybe they could even analyze these thousands of changing links for a pattern.

But like I said, DP can auto-check whether or not your're displaying links, so if they can do it so can Google.

[darker]

honestly, I don't care all that much about google anymore. The yahoo and msn traffic is pretty decent, so a ban don't really matter. BUT, as said, I would never use this site on any already large sites.

[Mike]

Yeah, I suppose the first way could be done. However, the problem then is, what about people paying to advertise on that site? If there were loads of rotations (which is possible), it wouldn't be that fair.

I think the best thing would be if the coop decided to split itself up a bit. Like into webmaster category, sport category etc. Least then the links are on topic.

[chromate]

Yeah, but remember that advertising shouldn't really have any affect on search rankings. If anything, I suppose google would like to weed out advertising links from being included in its ranking algorithms. Trading for links isn't democratic.

I think Google will have a hard time solving this problem though. I'm not completely sure how the advertising coop work, but I imagine DP knows what links are part of its network and so it knows what to look for when making sure people are displaying the links.

I think Google will just step up a gear with the whole Local Rank / relevancy detection type gizmos, to combat all these things.

[Emancipator]

just to add my 2 cents, MSN is easy to rank in.. VERY easy. Shawn is most correct.

[Joachim]

I don't know if it's going to be banned in one way or the other but
it sure will be interesting to see how it evolves.

If there have been similar cases like Chris mentioned then
I wouldn't trust it unless you have a site to try it out on ;-)

Chris do you remember what kind of ban was involved ?
IP/domain/certain links/certain code or something alike ?

On the other hand, if MSN and Yahoo are still years back regarding
technology and the traffic is good for those two with the use of the Coop
network then, ... why not ?

Joachim

[MarkB]

The sooner people stop concentrating on Google the better - Yahoo and MSN are offering fine alternatives, IMO, its just a pity that Google has saturation in their favour.

[ozgression]

MarkB, I agree 100%. Yahoo & MSN results are just as good, just not as popular.

Cheers...

[James]

Not to mention how badly Google results have slipped from their former glory.

Florida, to just adding a bunch of random pages back into the index to hit the 8 bill mark..

[chromate]

The problem is that Google is where the traffic is. I'm getting more traffic from MSN and Yahoo, but nothing compared with Google unfortunately.

I reckon MSN will get more and more popular though. Their search results seem pretty good and they've got the budget to do marketing and promotion. Google's results just seem a mess at the moment. In fact, they have done for the past year.

[michael_gersitz]

I like MSN, I am number 1 in all my keywords target keywords for my new site... :)

http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?FORM=MSNH&srch_type=0&q=poker%20blog
http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=poker%20wallpapers&FORM=QBRE
http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=poker&first=31&count=10&FORM=PERE3
http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=poker+forums&FORM=QBRE

[James]

Sadly, chances are that if you rank on the second page of Google, you'd be getting the same ammount of traffic.