The best way to attract users to your site, and keep them coming back, is to populate your pages with quality content that users are interested in. MSNBot and other Web crawlers can help by making your site available to a broader audience. Below, we’ve provided recommendations that may help MSNBot and other Web crawlers effectively index your site. We’ve also provided a list of items and techniques that MSN Search discourages.
Technical recommendations for your Web site:
- Use only well-formed HTML code in your pages. Ensure that all tags are
closed, and that all links are functioning properly. If your site
contains broken links, MSNBot may not be able to index your site
effectively, and users may not be able to reach all of your pages. For
more information about correct HTML syntax, see the HTML 4.01
Specification. - If you move your page, use the appropriate HTTP redirection code to indicate whether the move is permanent or temporary.
- Make sure MSNBot is allowed to crawl your site, and is not on your list of Web crawlers prohibited from indexing your site.
- Use a robots.txt file or Robots Meta tags to control how MSNBot and
other Web crawlers index your site. Using a robots.txt file will tell
Web crawlers which files and folders on your site it is not allowed to
crawl. For more information, see the MSNBot FAQ. - Whenever possible, use URLs that are simple and easy to read.
Content guidelines for your Web site:
- Limit all pages to a reasonable size. An HTML page with no pictures should be under 150 KB.
- MSN Search recommends discussing one topic per page. Use links to take users to related topics.
- To ensure your pages are easy to link to from other sites, keep your URLs simple and static. Complicated URLs, or URLs that change often, are difficult to use as link destinations. A persistent URL is easier for users to find and remember, and makes it a more likely link destination from other sites.
Items and techniques discouraged by MSN Search:
MSNBot recognizes the following items and techniques as spam, an inappropriate use of the index. Use of these items and techniques may affect how your site is ranked within MSN Search, and may result in the removal of your page or site from the MSN Search index.
- Loading pages with irrelevant words in an attempt to increase a page’s keyword density. This includes stuffing ALT tags that users are unlikely to view.
- Using hidden text or links. You should use only text and links that are visible to users.
- Using techniques to artificially increase the number of links to your page, such as link farms.