Ok so we first blogged about this here Microsoft’s Free Website We were initally very cynical. Amusingly though we picked up from analytics that we were 3rd page for the term with our humble 4 weeks old blogger blog, and so decided to go for top 5, and 3 weeks later made it. We’ve been #2-4 for Microsoft Free Websites ever since.
So after a fair amount of traffic for the term we came back to it again here Microsoft’s Free Websites - Part II ..and begrudgingly we had to admit that it wasn’t so bad, and it was indeed possible to get one absolutely free.
Then we built a test one here SEO Ibiza / Ibiza Now’s Free Microsoft Website ..which we still think is better than any of the 3 “samples” Microsoft themselves show and strangely, ours hasnt become a PR5 as yet either? 
Anyway the object of the exercise was to assess the SEO readiness of the site and with that in mind, we did nothing at all to it. Just let the webbie build it, and indexed it.
Bearing in mind the previous Ibiza Now post where it has taken us a month to get the actual magazine’s own website to Google #1 for their own name, we would have to say that the unpromoted site is of a relatively SEO friendly standard straight out of the box because it’s sitting at #13 for Ibiza Now Magazine without any trying at all.
So before too long we will have to have a look at it and see how viable SEO alterations on it actually are, because we still appear to be ranking #3 out of 16,5 million pages for it, and so really we have a responsibilty to all those who find our blog this way.
It must be said though that seo by editing pages on a browser-based wysiwyg editor is likely going to be both challenging and dull at the same time. Can’t wait..
