Althoug MSN is lagging behind both Yahoo and Google when it comes to the ways you can get your site indexed, it is still one of the top three search engines, and it should not be ignored.

MSN offers you two different ways to get your site indexed, and you should submit to both. However, before you do that, make sure that you have optimized your website first.

You can get more information on optimizing your site for MSN, as well as tips on search engine optimization, here:

http://www.submit-it.com/subopt.htm

The tips that you will find here basically apply to optimizing your site for any search engine, but they are definitely worth the read so that you focus your search engine optimization efforts in a way that will get your site indexed.

As I mentioned before, there are two ways to get indexed by MSN. The first involves submitting to the Intomi index. The Intomi index actually powers the MSN search.

Inktomi is now also part of Yahoo. However, you should still submit your site here. This will allow you to get indexed by hundreds of sites if your site is accepted.

http://submitit.bcentral.com/msnsubmit.htm

You will need to use a valid email address for your site. Make sure that you use an email account that you actually use so that if there is a problem, you can promptly fix it. You may also need to confirm your submission.

Keep in mind that there are no guarantees on turnaround, and there are also no guarantees that your site will be accepted.

The second part of submitting to MSN is actually submitting to the MSN spider. Rob Benwell, of "Blogging to the Bank" fame, said that he used MSN for his searches when looking for niches, because MSN updates more quickly than either Yahoo or Google, and this was why he used MSN to test his results.

This may be good advice. However, I believe that you should submit manually to MSN for the following reason: this is the number two website on the internet. It gets an enormous amount of traffic, and the traffic that this site brings you can help you with both your rankings, as well as being found by searchers.

ComScore Networworks reports that 48 percent of MSN searchers are more likely to buy, whereas Google searchers are 42 percent likely to buy. Yahoo users are 41 percent more likely to buy. Although these statistics were released in 2005, you can get more information from this site on demographic buying habits of searchers: http://www.comscore.com/

Now, you can use the link below to submit directly to the MSN spider:

http://beta.search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx

A word of caution here: when submitting to MSN, make sure that you understand the characters in the verification image on this page. You must type them exactly as you see them, or your site won't get submitted.

If your submission is successful, you will see a message that tells you your submission is successful and will ask you if you want to submit another site.

Once you have MSN crawling your site, you shouldn't have to resubmit.

If you follow these steps carefully, you should have no trouble getting your site accepted. Create great content, build links back to your site, and target the correct keywords, and you can get very high rankings.