What are MSN Search most important algorithms at the moment?

I noticed that my 'smiley' sites dropped rankings last few months within MSN Search. Many of them even totally vanished which had very dominating rankings in the past. Most of my sites were ranked top-5 or 1st page! At the moment I have only few sites ranked well. All of my sites have basicly same content, layout, etc. but each one targeting specific keyword. Each site was therefore also ranked high for that particular keyword!

Regarding my knowledge the following algorithms were always important for MSN:

- MSN likes keywords in domain;
- Number of backlinks plays a role for a certain amount;
- MSN is grazy about keywords in 'title' of site, but also likes keywords in 'headers'!
- Also number of times same keyword has been used within content plays a role.

At the moment I am working on all my sites again in order to get my high rankings back, therefore wondering what regarding you opinion MSN Search most important algorithms are at this time!!

Preferrable, ONLY reply to my thread when you are more or the less an expert on MSN Search SEO. Your experience with Google and/or Yahoo SEO will not help me directly (although MSN copies concepts of Google/Yahoo).

I need to figure out how MSN Search ranks sites right now & where MSN crawlers look at in particular!

Many thanks in advance! :)

MSN has a young algorithm with frequent drastic changes. As such it is hard to answer your question. I would say though that the easiest thing to focus on is backlinks with your keywords in the anchor text.

Michel I have had great success with MSN using the tactic that Chris has outlined as part of it. I have gotten #1 ranking on MSN in less then a week. Problem is they are always updating and the engine sends VERY little traffic in comparison to google.

Thanks guys for your replies!
- My next question is how come that my sites dropped from 1st page after several months, what happend? What is the change?
- AND how can I can get back my sites to 1st page again besides adding more back links with anchor text based on key words as you both mentioned?
Thanks a lot! :)

I've been very successful with MSN. Just because it sends little traffic, doesn't mean it doesn't convert.

Michel, make sure you update your content regularly. MSN gives a great fairly long boost to new content which may be why your site was ranked well for a few months. It also gives a good fresh boost when content is updated.

Of course if you have enough backlinks, regularly updating your content wont be as crucial to maintain rankings in MSN.