New MSN Search officially launches. What does it mean for you?

Microsoft officially launched their new MSN Search today, as anticipated. Bill Gates makes the announcement on the MSN home page with a prominently positioned "Letter from Bill Gates," complete with photo. (although I prefer these photos of him).

This is good news for marketers. Microsoft's new search technology offers a new channel for reaching your potential customers. Taking advantage of this new channel isn't hard, either. The tried-and-true search engine optimization tactics work as well if not better on the new MSN Search as they do on Google and Yahoo. These tactics include keyword-rich title tags, keyword-rich body copy, links from 'important' sites and keyword-rich text in the links from those sites.

In my just-published article on MarketingProfs, I reveal some critical factors for success in the new MSN Search, including:

• the power of the anchor text of inbound links ("MSN bombing")
• MSNbot's level of tolerance for complex URLs (i.e. how many parameters in the "query string" are too many)
• how to obtain a list of backlinks for your site
• ...and more

You'll need to be a MarketingProfs premium subscriber to read the article. A version of this article is coming out in this month's issue of Catalog Age magazine. It's not online yet on Catalog Age's site, but I'll post a blog entry once it is.