Optimizing Site for MSN

Optimizing your site for search engine placement is one thing and optimizing it for a specific search engine is some thing else. As we all know each of the search engine uses its own specific algorithm, and therefore, a particular act would help differently in ranking of the site in different search engines. Optimizing a site for search engine is neither too difficult nor a matter of luck as some might feel and I might add further that it is not an overnight phenomenon either.
Some search engines get the desired results from databases of multiple search engines rather than maintaining one of its own. As per the latest estimates more than 87% of the users rely on Google, MSN and Yahoo engines and rest of the market share is used by all other search engines. While you would see tons of material available on how to optimize site for Google, not much is written on optimizing the site for MSN.

What makes MSN different from other search engines especially Google is its placing great importance in using page optimization techniques. Where Google and Yahoo engines concentrates on incoming link anchor text alone, MSN places heavier reliance on keyword density. If you don’t have many external links but have quality and keyword rich content, at the end of the day you would find more pages indexed on MSN than Google, thus helping you gain more traffic.
Another aspect which makes MSN different from other search engines is its incorporating "neural networks" technique into its search engine algorithm which is also referred to as "RankNet." Ranknet is fast becoming a matter of great consideration among search optimizers as it helps in getting additional traffic.
Ranknet is an innovative technique employed by MSN which considers the patterns of human searches, updates its algo with that to provide a more relevant result not only on the current searches but for future searches as well. It means it keeps on updating its ranking mechanism in keeping with the current trends. Thus you can always keep the content keyword updated with the latest searched terms.
Another thing, though it is helpful for optimizing site for any engine but probably more helpful for MSN is that to use well-formed HTML code without any broken links in your pages.
You may also do well to use a robots.txt file to control how MSN bot indexes your site. This is also vital for other crawlers. Limit all pages to a reasonable size and drop pictures that are lower than 150 KB. You must add a site map would also be beneficial since, it will allow MSN bot to locate all of your pages without difficulty. Remember also to pick one topic for each page.
While creating content, avoid overstuffing keywords, and don’t stuff useless content just to add content. Avoid putting words that are not relevant just to increase a page's keyword density. Hidden text or links are strict no no and rather may remove you from engine’s index.
Putting a summary of the content at the top of the page would a great idea. Description of the same could be added in meta tag. Keep the web site description updated. Another important factor in page optimization, particularly with MSN is the keywords.
I am sure doing these simple tweaks would help your site gain better rankings and traffic on MSN.