DirecHit & MSN Search - Similar ALGO/ SERPs Strategies?
The Web Archive saves Web pages and their links - so looking for the Search Engine DIRECT HIT - there was a Real-time snapshot of SERPs dating back from 1997 to 2000 http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.directhit.com
Their claim to fame was CLICK POPULARITY - where the SERPs were influenced by how many clicks a given pages was getting on a query.
in theory, the more CLICKS the higher it would get in the SERPs for a given Search Term(s). Those pages farther away from #1 postion would be commensurately increasingly rewarded for getting clicks. Here is a SnapShot of their explanation of that technology CLICK POPULARITY
http://web.archive.org/web/20000816061548/directhit.com/about/products/technology_whitepaper.html
The new New Neural Net/RankNet ALGO technology of MSN Search Borrows heavily from this Strategy.
This is Page Two for a SERPs for Search Engines one of the most popular terms ever
Since there are REAL SERPs - hover your cursor on ANY result and look at the URL
http://web.archive.org/web/20001004042923/http://directhit.com/fcgi-bin/RedirURL.fcg?url=http://www.dogpile.com/&qry=Search+Engines&rnk=10&src=DH_Web_SRCH&u=0000039311&src=DH_SRCH_POP&persrch=|||
Here is the Number 20 result form a 10/18/2000 Saved Search
Notice the RED highlighted items
the info given to Direct Hit about that URL includes
the URL - dogpile.com
the query - qry=Search Engines
the rank - rnk=10
and the Web SRCHNow analyze the new MSN search for the term Search Engines
(there tracking code appears SOMETIMES - but for a saved result for the Popular term Search EnginesYou will notice
the URL
the Postion - POS=9
THE ORGANIC SERPs POSITION - SR=6
NOTICE they include the POSITION (including the sponsor links)
and the organic positionAs well as other tracking codes - MANY other tracking codes
For some people a tracking cookie may tell how long a person stays on the site they visited (also indentified by IP address ) before returning to the SERPs - so if a person was NOT happy and returned back - that may be a DEMERIT of sorts for the result
Sometimes the MSN referrer will be Visible along with the URL when you check the PROPERTIES by right clicking on a link
MSN search IS becoming a MAJOR player - so this video interview with the Engineer and Developer/ Quality Control ALGO team is very revealing for SEOs and Webmasters
One interesting tidbit is that the publicized “neural network” may be nothing more than the DirectHit Click Popularity re-hash (notice the “no comment”)The below link code in their SERPs relays all the information about that click to MSN - Can you figure out this code - it really is quite Revealing
Here is the related Blog and ONE HOUR interview with their Engineers
http://blogs.msdn.com/msnsearch/archive/2005/10/22/483846.aspx
