To learn more about Microsoft and its Bing search engine, also see our Search Engine Land’s Guide To Bing page.

Microsoft Turns Off Streetside Imagery In Germany Over Photo Blurring Concerns

May 23, 2012 at 2:52pm ET by Matt McGee

Here's a shocker*: Microsoft's Streetside service has hit a bumpy road in Germany. The company says it's shut down Streetside imagery in Germany after complaints about the way the company was handling blurring requests. Microsoft spokesperson Thomas Baumgartner tells PCWorld that he's not sure if or when Streetside will be reinstated in Germany. A Microsoft statement says that the complaints are from "customers," not from any government data protection-related agencies. We have learned that there are a limited number of customers in Germany who raised concerns about the way we are pur [...]

Bing’s Visual Search Is Gone (Has Been For A While, Actually)

May 22, 2012 at 7:30pm ET by Matt McGee

The fact that almost no one noticed might be one reason why Bing has dropped its Visual Search feature ... something that apparently happened months ago. To be clear, this isn't traditional image search that we're talking about; that's still available at bing.com/images. We're talking about the "Visual Search" tool/interface that Bing launched in 2009 with a unique interface that used Silverlight technology to let searchers view a large set of images and data. In our article about the launch, we used this screenshot as a sample of the Visual Search interface: The independent Micr [...]

Related Topics: Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Bing Image Search

Former Yahoo Executive Pleads Guilty To Securities Fraud Charge Related To Microsoft Deal

May 22, 2012 at 12:06pm ET by Pamela Parker

The Search Alliance between Yahoo and Microsoft had some unintended beneficiaries (now casualties). Yahoo's former senior director of business management, Robert Kwok, has pled guilty to conspiracy to commit securities fraud, after being accused that he told a mutual fund manager in July 2009 that the deal between Yahoo and Microsoft was imminent. Among its many provisions, the deal -- officially announced in late July of 2009 -- called for Microsoft to pay Yahoo $50 million annually, for three years, for implementation costs. The mutual fund manager, Reema Shah, formerly of Ameriprise F [...]

Related Topics: Microsoft: Bing | Yahoo: Business Issues

Bing Offers Advice On Google’s Penguin Update: Diversify

May 21, 2012 at 9:40am ET by Barry Schwartz

Duane Forrester, Senior Product Manager at Microsoft Bing, wrote a blog post on the Bing Search blog named Penguins & Pandas Poetry. The post is about Google's latest Penguin update and how SEOs and webmasters need to be better prepared for such updates. The basic advice is simple, SEOs and webmasters need to do one thing - diversify. Duane is not just saying, focus on Bing and make sure your site does well there too. Yes, if you lose all your Google traffic, ranking well in Bing is nice but since Bing only has about 30% marketshare, you are still missing out on a lot of traffic. [...]

Bing Search API Now On Paid Platform

May 17, 2012 at 2:04pm ET by Barry Schwartz

About a month ago, Microsoft informed us the Bing API would no longer be free and today is the day they migrated the Bing Search API to the paid platform. Microsoft said for the time being, the Bing API will still be free - to try out. But those with over 5,000 queries per month will have to start paying after the free trial is over. The pricing structure is posted here and currently reads: 2,500,000 queries for $5,000.00 2,000,000 queries for $4,000.00 1,500,000 queries for $3,000.00 1,000,000 queries for $2,000.00 500,000 queries for $1,000.00 250,000 queries for $500.00 100, [...]

Related Topics: Microsoft: APIs | Microsoft: Bing

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