Bing Gets Its Own Knowledge Graph Via Britannica Partnership

Bing’s search results are getting a bit more informational thanks to a new partnership with Encyclopedia Britannica.

They’re calling it “Britannica Online Encyclopedia Answers,” and it adds extra information about a search result right within the search results page. As the screenshots below show, it looks quite a bit like Google’s recently-launched Knowledge Graph feature, but there are some differences that I’ll mention below.

bing-britannica

I’ve used red arrows to highlight one of the main differences with how Google presents this data and Bing’s version — Bing links out to several third-party sites for further information, such as Wikipedia, Freebase, Qwiki and Britannica (the source of the encyclopedic information). In Google’s Knowledge Graph presentation, the links primarily lead to new Google searches.

Some other noticeable differences, all of which I believe are related:

Bing is currently showing these Britannica-powered listings far less often than Google shows Knowledge Graph boxes.
Bing seems to show the Britannica information only if a Britannica URL appears as one of the organic search results.
Bing’s display happens right with the organic search result, while Google shows Knowledge Graph boxes to the right of the organic results

Bing, of course, could eventually change its display for these Britannica results, but that’s what I’m seeing now.

On the searches where I found the Britannica-enhanced results, they were down the search results page, mixed in at whatever spot Britannica.com was ranking for the keyword. Other online encyclopedia sites, like Wikipedia and the New World Encyclopedia also showed up in the search results, often above Britannica.com.

About The Author: Matt McGee is Editor-In-Chief of Search Engine Land. His news career includes time spent in TV, radio, and print journalism. His web career continues to include a small number of SEO and social media consulting clients, as well as regular speaking engagements at marketing events around the U.S. He blogs at Small Business Search Marketing and can be found on Twitter at @MattMcGee and/or on Google Plus. You can read Matt's disclosures on his personal blog. See more articles by Matt McGee

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http://www.michaelcropper.co.uk/ Michael Cropper

At least Bing have the decency to give credit where credit is due, unlike Google -
Googles Business Plan: Steal Content and Screw Publishers http://www.michaelcropper.co.uk/2012/06/googles-business-plan-steal-content-and-screw-publishers-1081.html
http://www.OfInteresttoMe.com/ Matt

Interesting. Thanks to Wikipedia’s much larger database I think Google’s Knowledge graph is the better short term service, but I do love Bing and this partnership with Britannica is a great start to competing with Google.
Matt McGee

I agree. Right now there’s no comparison between the two. Google’s is much more highly developed.
RichardOverton

Surely britannica should appear before wikipedia results especially if you have safe search turned on.
http://larrysanger.org/2012/05/what-should-we-do-about-wikipedias-porn-problem/
http://www.facebook.com/people/Jack-N-Fran-Farrell/100002337622505 Jack N Fran Farrell

If Microsoft was interested in propagating knowledge at the lowest possible price it would fund some cognitive science like Pinker and some humanists and let them collaborate with the graph theorists. Maybe in a few years the knowledge graph of Britannica would look as cool as Ngrams.