Msn Guidelines for successful indexing

Msn Guidelines for successful indexing

The following are recommendations that might help Live Search's MSNBot (The Live Search web crawler, a program that scans websites and indexes their content, such as text, documents, images, and links, for searching.) and other web crawlers (A program that scans websites and indexes their content, such as text, documents, images, and links, for searching. The web crawler used by Live Search is also known as MSNBot.) Effectively index and rank your website. Live Search has also provided a list of techniques to avoid if you want to make sure your website is indexed.

Technical recommendations for your website

Use the following techniques to ensure your website is technically optimized for MSNBot and other web crawlers:

1. Use only well-formed, HTML code in your WebPages. Make sure that all paired tags are closed, and that all links open the correct webpage. For information on validating your HTML code, see either HTTP Compression and HTTP Conditional Get test tool or W3C Markup Validation Service or use a comparable tool.

2. If your website contains broken links, MSNBot might not be able to index your website effectively, thus preventing people from reaching all of your webpages. For information on finding broken links on your website, see the Help topic for the Webmaster Center's Crawl Issues tool.

3. If you move a webpage, set up the webpage's original URL to redirect people to the new webpage. Indicate whether the move is permanent or temporary. For more information, see what to do when your website is relocated.

4. Make sure MSNBot is allowed to crawl your website and isn't on your list of web crawlers that are prohibited from indexing your website. For more information, see Control which webpages on your website are indexed.

5. Use a Robots.txt file or Meta tags to control how MSNBot and other web crawlers index your website. You can use the Robots.txt file to prevent web crawlers from crawling specific files and folders. For more information about the Robots.txt file and the Robots Exclusion standard, see A Standard for Robot Exclusion. This site might be available in English only.

6. Keep your URLs simple and static. URLs that are complicated or that change frequently are difficult to index as link destinations. For example, the URL www.example.com/mywebpage 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 easy for people to remember and bookmark. That makes your webpage a more likely link destination from other websites.
7. Watch for malicious software (malware). Links to webpages on your website that lead to malware on third-party websites or contain malicious content, such as a maliciously corrupted image or document file, or a harmful ActiveX control or JavaScript, will be disabled and highlighted as Malware in Live Search results webpages. See the Help topics for the Webmaster Center's Crawl Issues tool and Outbound Links tool to learn how to find these detected malware issues on your website. See Remediate detected malware to help rid your website of all malware.

Content guidelines for your website

The best way to attract people to your website, and keep them coming back, is to fill your webpages with valuable content in which your target audience is interested. The following guidelines can help you create a more effective and popular webpage:

1. In the visible webpage text, include words users might choose as search query terms to find the information on your website.

2. Limit all WebPages to a reasonable size. Live Search recommends covering one topic per webpage. An HTML webpage with no images should be under 150 KB.

3. Make sure that each webpage is accessible by at least one static text link.

4. Don't put the text that you want indexed within images. For example, if you want your company name or address to be indexed, make sure it isn't displayed only inside an image of your company logo.

5. Add a sitemap, which helps MSNBot to find all of your webpages. Links that are embedded in menus, list boxes, and similar elements aren't accessible to web crawlers unless they appear in your sitemap. For information on creating sitemaps, see the Help topic for the Webmaster Center's Sitemaps tool.

6. Keep your website hierarchy fairly flat. That is, each webpage should only be from one to three clicks away from the default webpage.

Techniques that might prevent your website from appearing in Live Search results

The following techniques aren't appropriate in terms of attempting to gain higher ranking with the Live Search index. Use of these techniques might actually adversely affect how your website is ranked within Live Search, and might even cause your website to be removed from the index.

1. Attempting to increase a webpage's keyword density by add lots of irrelevant words. This includes stuffing ALT tags that users are unlikely to view.

2. Using hidden text or links. Only use text and links that are visible to users.

3. Using techniques, such as link farms, to artificially increase the number of links to your webpage.

Source: www.live.com