MSN Rolls out new search interface / algorithm

Here is a little insight from a forum post regarding what is happening with the MSN search ranking algorithm. This reading is consistent with the approach that we constantly emphasize in our weekly clinic, which is, "content is king!" Do your pages properly to be useful to the reader first, then pay attention to the parameters that search engines pay attention to, and you will do well in the rankings over the longer term!

"While MSN has been a little volatile lately, for the past year or so they have been the SE where I've seen the most consistency with maintaining my results. From what I've tracked, here is where I focus my efforts to maintain and improve rankings:
1. Title tags - MSN is bigger on titles than any other SE imho. The order of your keyword phrases matters.
2. Content - FYI: They are pretty swift to drop your rankings for dup. content
3. Affiliate Links - MSN seems to be going the way of DMOZ regarding affiliate sites. If they see too many OBAL's it will definitely hold you back a bit. For instance, I have an affiliate site that from the get go was doing very well in MSN right from the get-go. I noticed about a week into it that my affiliate tracking links were wrong. Once I fixed the links, my site was not only dropped from the first page, but out of their index altogether. (I can show an example for those that PM me) I'm not saying you can't get ranked with them if you have an affiliate site, as I have many others that are doing alright, but it seems to me they are tinkering with something resembling an affiliate site penalty. Again, just my opinion from my own experience.
4. Meta Data - Unlike the other 'majors', MSN seems to still be placing some importance on this. Meta Description tends to attract the most attention on my sites.

I hope that helped a bit. The main thing for MSN (and most other SE's) is to have your site appear as 'natural' or 'non-optimized' as possible - of course that is the key to good SEO anyway, imo"