Posts About ‘Bing’

Bing ads Facebook photos, Wolfram Alpha Analyzes your Data

wolfram-aplha-facebook-analyze

Facebook and search, there has been said a lot about that topic in the past few years. Could Facebook be a Google competitor? Their search is not good enough for it, but more importantly: people don’t go to Facebook to search, so it doesn’t make sense. The combination between Facebook and Bing makes sense, something they upgraded this week as well (see below).

But combining their social elements with search engines could be a very interesting angle. Facebook already has a deal with Bing and Bing is now making their search results more social with the help of Facebook. Another deal which Facebook has now made is with Wolphram Alpha, the knowledge engine based on structured data. It now lets you analyse your personal data on Facebook. (more…)

Bing Let’s You ‘Dissavow’ Links

no-links

Bing has launched a new feature in their Bing Webmaster Tools which allows you to ‘disallow’ links pointing at your site. You can now say you don’t want to be associated with a certain link and the ‘value’ of that link will not be counted in Bing’s algorithm.

The feature is something which can prevent negative SEO efforts, people buying links and pointing them at your site for example, but it is also useful for ‘cleaning up your act’ if you have foul links. It might also be a help stop those e-mailing other sites to take down links, threatening with legal actions. It sure is a feature which many people would love to see on Google as well. (more…)

Bing Testing New Design in the UK

We sometimes catch Google tests in the wild, even though most of the State of Search bloggers are based in Europe. That is because Google tends to test broader than just the US (even though US does get the most attention from Google).

With Bing its different, since they focus mainly on the US, maybe because of the market share. So when they do test here its news. Maybe not big news, but still news.

It now seems as if Bing is testing the new designs, which they have been testing in the US already, in the UK. According to Webpronews a version is being tested which has a new homepage design and in which the search results are cleaner. (more…)

Requesting Bing to Board the European market

boarding-pass

Last week Bing announced another major update to their search engine. They announced the New Bing, with integration of more social aspects and more relevant core information. Within the announcement they stated that “In 2009, we launched Bing with a simple proposition: people should expect more from a search engine.” My response to the latest announcement was the following tweet:

I want to use this post to make a request. I want to reach out to Microsoft and ask them to start living up to their ‘simple proposition’ outside the US and take the European Bing more seriously.

Every time I read one of the announcements of new features to Bing my first response is: “hey, that looks pretty cool!”. But my second response sadly almost always is: “Oh, it’s still US-only”. I would be fine with that if within the next few months Bing would roll out these features worldwide. But they just don’t, leaving the rest of the world wondering if this feature was really as cool as it looked.

For example, in May 2011 Bing launched the integration of information from Facebook friends into their search results, similar to how Google+ powered Google’s search results. It looked like a much more relevant way to socialize search, because more information is shared on Facebook than on Google+. But this feature was launched US-only, never to be rolled out in Europe till this very moment.

The difference between Google and Bing here is very clear. When Google announces a new feature you know it will launch in the US most of the time as well, but you also know it will be rolled out in Europe within a few months. With Bing you know you could have to wait even a few years if you see it ever at all. Just compare the Bing services currently offered in The Netherlands, the UK and the US.

I really want to try and use Bing as a user, I really do. And as an SEO I definitely think the search engine market in Europe needs a competitor for Google. 95% market share cannot be healthy for the market. But if Bing wants to take on Google they really need to take things more seriously. And since more people are complaining about Google now than ever before, wouldn’t it be the perfect time for Bing to enter the European market directly with the New Bing and go full power ahead? What are they waiting for?

Bing Launches “The New Bing”: Search Goes Social In Extreme

New-Bing-Coming-soon-1

Bing has been a bit ‘quiet’ over the past few years, we were all wondering whether the people at Microsoft had given up on the battle with Google and if they might even consider selling the engine to Facebook.

Then last week Bing suddenly came out with a new whiter design. Much more like how Google used to be. Was this a move which was a response to Google’s more and more cluttered search results? Maybe a little, but yesterday it became all clear why: Bing ‘relaunched’ into “The New Bing”, “a brand new information architecture with a three column design”.

Bing integrates social into search as well as what they call a ‘snapshot’, a column which helps you ‘do’ things a lot faster, like instantly booking a hotel. (more…)

Bing Homepage Experiment Annoys Users

bing_logo

In the last couple of days Bing tested a rather unusual feature on the homepage which annoyed a lot of users. Users of Bing that were part of the test got a whole lot of new opened tabs when using the search engine because every time after typing a query and hitting enter a new tab was opened with the results. And this was just in Google Chrome and Firefox and these users were lucky because users of Apple browser Safari had the results opened in a new window… that is…. for every query…. every time….

The result of the test was that a group of users complained on Twitter with some of them thinking it was a bug on the homepage. After to many complaints Microsoft decided to shut down the experiment. “We heard the feedback, and we’re disabling the feature now.” Microsoft sayed. (more…)

Friday Talk: Jean-Benoit Van Bunnen About Bing’s Search Strategy

There always is a lot of talk about Google, but what are Microsoft’s plans with Bing? Are they going to get into the serious business? Many want Bing to succeed, just because they believe Google needs competition.

In this Friday Talk you get to listen to the plans that Microsoft has with Bing, or at least the plans they had a year ago. Bing’s Jean-Benoit Van Bunnen talks about that at the Search University.

Bing Strips Search Results With New Look

bing_stripped_featured

Microsoft decided to overhaul the design of the search results, the page now has a completely new layout. Earlier this year several users spotted a experiment of a cleaner interface and since that moment Microsoft experimented further and came up, based on the received feedback with this new stripped design.

After performing a query you will see a very clean and simple interface. The left column with search history and filters is gone and the related searches are now shown at the right net to the results. Besides the related searches nothing is shown here, even no ads. The left side as wide as the logo now looks pretty empty. (more…)

A New Era: Are Google and Bing Embracing SEO?

yellow-brick-road

The wonderful thing about working in SEO is the fact that things are constantly changing – we’re always kept on our toes and the man behind the curtain seems to go to great lengths to keep SEOs at a distance and to keep manipulation of the mighty SERPs to a minimum.

However, amidst a torrent of abuse from some of the more prominent white hat SEOs in the industry of Google for “making liars out of the good guys in SEO“, who have treated content as king, and who have put the user first, it seems to me as though some very serious changes are afoot.

Inspite of my critical view of a number of major developments in the industry and moves by the search giants, I am going to do something that I don’t often do and defend the search engines for a moment. As I have said in the past, it is easy to be critical and it is even easier to get frustrated when you put in the long hours doing what Google tells you is “right” and don’t see the results translate into success in the SERPs whilst others that engage in activities that would not appear on a list of “best practices” from the major search engines continue to benefit. (more…)

Bing Desktop Puts Bing On Your Desktop

bing_desktop_featured

In a surprising move, at least to me, Microsoft made Bing Desktop, a little piece of software (1.4 MB) to add the search engine to your desktop. After downloading and installing the software there will be a small search field at the center of your desktop. After typing a query and hitting enter the browser will open with the results in a new tab.

The search field is designed to give quicker access to the search engine but I wonder if users who have a browser window opened most of the time will actually use the software. It does also remind me off the Windows Gadgets which are not developed or supported actively anymore.

By default the search field is placed in the middle of the screen but in the settings there is an option to place the field at the top of your screen. In that case you can simply move your mouse to the top and the search field becomes visible. Also you can drag the field to the left of right.

Everyday a new Wallpaper

Next to search the software has another feature where it can be used for: wallpapers. If you use Bing you will see a different background-image everyday on the homepage. Bing Desktop lets you connect to these pictures. By activating this feature in the settings the picture used on the homepage of the search engine will also be set automaticly as your wallpaper and this will also change every day.

Bing Desktop can be download here and is only available for Windows 7 users. Would you use Bing Desktop to search? Or would you use the software for the wallpapers?.

What Do You Do When You Logout of Facebook? Go Bing, Says Facebook

facebook_ad_bing

It is probably not something many people will do when they are using their own computer, but it might happen a lot when on public computers: logging out of Facebook.

It was calculated that in the US alone, 37 million people logout of Facebook on a daily basis. Monthly that numbers is 105 million users logging out. You can imagine that it would be interesting to ‘get’ those people and direct them to a specific website. This would be the perfect advertising opportunity.

Usually you will see a screen which just shows some Facebook information, there is no ad there. But some users have now seen a new trend: Facebook suggesting you to go to a specific site after you log out. The ‘lucky ones’ in this case are Bing. (more…)

A Little Bit of Bing, in Numbers

BING-Infographic-intro

Last week Freshegg had a #BingFriday. On this day they specifically looked at Bing and they specifically asked people to use Bing. I thought that was a very nice and smart idea. Bing can use the attention with all the talk about Google.

We already saw the questions they asked Bing’s director Stefan Weitz yesterday. One of the other things they posted was this infographic about Bing. A little bit of Bing, in numbers. (more…)

Page 2 of 71234567