Microsoft’s MSN has “redesigned” their House and Home channel and split it off into real estate and lifestyle. It seems like a good decision. MSN had lumped a lot of stuff under the one section. Among them: bathroom gadgets, kitchen remodeling, a halloween guide, and an ode to soy.
Google, supposedly Microsoft’s new arch rival, lists 75,000 articles about House and Home. And Google sends lots of traffic to MSN for these links, which are ranked high in searches. Each and every one of those links to specific articles now gets the following “page:”
We’ve redesigned our pages to serve you better!
- Visit realestate.msn.com pages for home listings, financing, and home improvement services.
- Visit lifestyle.msn.com to learn more about home decoration, recipes, and better living.
In response to feedback from customers, we have created two sites focusing on your request for more in depth, relevant content and information.
Some people say it’s easy to pick on Microsoft. Maybe so, but they aren’t making it any harder. It’s not an easy task to archive thousands of articles, but such is the life of a web publisher. I believe this goes beyond making the smart choice, which is to redirect to new versions of those articles. All sites, especially large ones, have a responsibility to do the right thing.
Thom Singer writes of a Twilight Zone episode about kind aliens coming to a small town to share their gospel, “To Serve Man.” The dramatic conclusion has the townsfolk realizing what definition of “serve” the aliens are using.
Unfortunately, it seems in MSN’s effort “to serve you better,” they are taking one straight from this episode.
Full disclosure: I work for DuVinci, who has a client that is a partner of MSN. I know that’s a little “six degrees,” but I should mention that these thoughts are my own alone.
Thanks for the mention….my “statcounter” shows a bunch of folks coming to read my blog from this post. Cool.
Thom