To learn more about Bing, also see our Search Engine Land’s Guide To Bing page.

Bing Adds 5X More Facebook Content To Social Sidebar

Jan 17, 2013 at 12:00pm ET by Greg Sterling

The big news in search this week was the announcement of Facebook's Graph Search. But today, Microsoft is making enhancements to its own "social search" capability. Specifically, Bing is adding more content to its Social Sidebar feature. In a way, this is a reintroduction of Social Sidebar following the news of Facebook's Graph Search. People will now be able to see considerably more Facebook data surface in Social Sidebar. This will include Facebook status updates, comments and shared links in addition to the Facebook content already present (i.e., Likes, photos, etc.). Microsoft said t [...]

Adobe: Paid Search Opportunities Lie In Tablet Targeting And PLAs

Jan 17, 2013 at 10:53am ET by Pamela Parker

Where are the bargains in paid search these days? According to an analysis of the fourth quarter in paid search, Adobe determined that both tablet targeting and product listing ads represent great opportunities for marketers, where there's a substantial gap between cost-per-click (CPC) and conversion rate. Adobe came to its conclusions after looking at paid search spend across more than 2 billion impressions by its clients in the fourth quarter. Adobe's Media Optimizer unit came from the company's acquisition of paid-search-specific company Efficient Frontier. Paid search as a whole had [...]

Survey Shows Americans Confused By How Google, Facebook Make Money

Jan 9, 2013 at 10:14am ET by Greg Sterling

A new survey from Harris Interactive on behalf of The Search Agency finds, among other things, that large numbers of people in the US don't really understand how Facebook and Google make money. The online survey was conducted in August 2012 with a sample of just over 2,000 adults. The Search Agency (via Harris) asked whether people agreed with the question "I understand how Facebook makes money." A slight majority (54 percent) said that they strongly or somewhat agreed. On the flip side, 46 percent essentially did not understand. However even among the 54 percent who said they understoo [...]

A Test, Not A Bug: Bing Deep Links To Facebook, eBay, Craigslist Under Google’s Search Result

Jan 3, 2013 at 8:27pm ET by Matt McGee

It looked like a screwup. If you searched for [google] on Bing, you saw Deep Links to Facebook, eBay and Craigslist underneath the main search result for Google. So, in my article earlier today, I called it a "strange bug" in Bing's search results. I was wrong. It wasn't a bug; it was a test that Bing was running and has now turned off. A Bing spokesperson confirmed for us this afternoon that this was no mistake. We're constantly updating and refining the Bing search experience to help people get things done more quickly. We are currently conducting tests on navigational links that will [...]

Strange Bug In Bing Deep Links Shows Facebook, Craigslist As Part Of Google

Jan 3, 2013 at 2:49pm ET by Matt McGee

Google has deep pockets and probably would be happy if Facebook, eBay and Craigslist were part of its empire ... but last I checked, they're all separate companies. Nonetheless, links to those three sites are showing as Deep Links on Bing under the Google.com result when you search for [google]. The "Go to YouTube" link can at least be explained by the fact that Google owns YouTube; the others are clearly a bug, and one that I can't easily explain. That exact text -- "Go to Facebook," etc. -- doesn't show up anywhere on the page or in the source code when you do navigational searches [...]

Bing Linked Pages Now Called Bing Tags

Dec 21, 2012 at 9:08am ET by Barry Schwartz

Earlier this year, Bing announced a new featured named Bing Linked Pages, that feature is now named Bing Tags. The feature allows you or your friends to "tag" web pages and documents in Bing's index as being related to you or your friend. The purpose is to make the search results for you and your friends more personalized as well as richer. Now, instead of going to bing.com/linkedpages, you go to bing.com/tags and tag the pages related to you and friends. Also, Bing renamed how it looks in the search results. From saying "linked to" to saying "tagged." A Before Shot: An After S [...]

Bing’s Social Sidebar Lands On The iPad

Dec 14, 2012 at 3:07pm ET by Matt McGee

Bing has announced that searchers on the iPad will start seeing its "social sidebar" over the next few days. That includes the iPad Mini. Today's announcement comes just days after Bing finalized a new design for those social results. The social sidebar integrates friend and expert content from a variety of social sources that might be relevant to a user's search term. Bing says the display will adjust appropriately for either portrait or landscape mode. Here's a screenshot from Bing's announcement: As always, searchers will need to login to/authenticate their Facebook account [...]

This Year, NORAD Tracks Santa With Microsoft & Bing, Not Google

Dec 12, 2012 at 2:15pm ET by Danny Sullivan

Google has been helping the popular NORAD Tracks Santa site locate Santa Claus on Christmas Eve since 2007. But this year, Jolly St. Nick will be tracked on Bing Maps, not Google. NORAD is also pushing an official Windows 8 app. It part of Microsoft being the new lead partner for the site. NOTE: For the latest news on 2012 Santa tracking, see our post: Where’s Santa Claus? The 2012 Santa Tracker List, From NORAD To Google, From The Web To Apps Goodbye, Google NORAD Tracks Santa has a new "team" page listing corporate sponsors. Microsoft tops the list; Bing Maps is prominent and Google is [...]

Official: Bing Updates Social Sidebar Design

Dec 11, 2012 at 2:12pm ET by Barry Schwartz

Bing has officially announced they have redesigned the search results screen and social sidebar to help improve usability of the page. The changes include: The social results on the right are now clearly labelled as "Social Results" The search results on the left are now left-justified Addition of a + more link to expand the results to see more. We saw this was coming in tests that were leaked a few weeks ago. In that story, Danny Sullivan digs deeper into the main changes. Here are screen shots of before and after: Before: After: Related Articles: Bing T [...]

Bing Expands Its Snapshot To Include People & Landmarks

Dec 10, 2012 at 3:16pm ET by Matt McGee

There's no escaping it: It looks and acts a lot like Google's Knowledge Graph. But Bing calls it "Snapshot" -- that middle column in between its main search results and the social sidebar on the far right. And today, Snapshot expands to begin showing facts and related information for both people and landmarks. So, on a search for famous artist Pablo Picasso, the middle column shows his image and a few facts about his life, along with related search links to get information about his family, artwork and more. Here's a look: The small print at the bottom of the Snapshot results for [...]

The Mysterious Relationship Between Bing Business Portal And Nokia Prime Place

Dec 6, 2012 at 8:09am ET by Greg Sterling

People have strongly criticized Google for confusing local marketers by having two places to update and enhance local business information (Google Places, Google+ Local Pages). But there's also something confusing about what Microsoft appears to be doing in local listings management. The company appeared to be trying to establish the Bing Business Portal as the definitive place to claim, correct or enhance local business information on Bing. But Microsoft's relationship with Nokia has complicated things. Nokia has a comparable local listings on-boarding mechanism called "Nokia Prim [...]

Bing On The Top Search Trends For 2012: Kardashian, Bieber & Gangnam Style

Nov 27, 2012 at 3:00am ET by Elisabeth Osmeloski

Oh baby, baby, baby oh... Sorry Biebs, you better believe you just got Kanye'd off the top searched celeb spot by Kim Kardashian. Ouch. But if you were her boyfriend... oh never mind. Let's get on to the good stuff that Bing announced earlier this evening, the big list of 2012 Bing Trends. Bing's biggest list to date includes nineteen categories, nearly doubling their hottest search topics in 2011, which was already a marked improvement over just two main celebrity search categories in 2010 and in 2009, which was Bing's very first list of year-end top searches. This year, the Bing sea [...]

Google & Bing’s Thanksgiving Day Home Pages

Nov 22, 2012 at 10:14am ET by Barry Schwartz

Happy Thanksgiving Day! Both Google and Bing has special logos and themes up on their home pages today. Google has a Google Doodle representing the Thanksgiving Day parade, with the Google letters as hot air ballons. Bing has a Turkey getting a warm kiss from a friend: For some reason, Yahoo doesn't have a special logo up today - which is not typical of Yahoo. But Dogpile, AOL, and Ask.com have logos. Last year, Google had a Thanksgiving Day logo that was their first sharable Doodle ever. Related Logos: Google Does Thanksgiving Logo Early, First Ever One Sharable On Go [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Logos | Microsoft: Bing

Bing Publishes Its Webmaster Guidelines

Nov 16, 2012 at 4:47pm ET by Matt McGee

Bing has published its first set of webmaster guidelines, offering website owners general guidance on best practices related to SEO for Bing's search engine. They're accessible in the Help section of Bing's Webmaster Tools as a new entry under the "Content Guidelines" section. The direct link is www.bing.com/webmaster/help/webmaster-guidelines-30fba23a. Bing's Webmaster Guidelines touch on things like links and social media in very general terms, and go into a bit more depth on SEO and technical website topics. But they aren't nearly as detailed nor comprehensive as what Google offers, a [...]

Trying To Get There From Here: Nokia And Mapquest Launch New Maps Products

Nov 13, 2012 at 9:05pm ET by Greg Sterling

Globally there are arguably four main digital mapping competitors: Google, Apple, Microsoft and Nokia. Google is the clear leader. However Nokia is making a renewed bid to challenge Google's mapping supremacy with a rebranded platform "Here," new APIs, a Google Street View-like offering, augmented reality and new apps for third party smartphone operating systems. Apple is busy trying to fix its recently launched maps and seems to be making some progress. Bing, after aggressively investing in maps for several years, now seems to be outsourcing key parts of its mapping infrastructure to Nokia [...]

Google Releases Search App For Microsoft Surface & Windows RT

Nov 13, 2012 at 11:57am ET by Barry Schwartz

Exciting news for Google users who have upgraded to the Microsoft Surface device & Windows RT operating system. You can now download the Google Search App, which is specifically optimized for the Windows Surface and Windows RT. Google announced this on their Google+ page saying: If you just got a new Windows RT tablet and want to use Google Search, you’re in luck—you can now download the Google Search app optimized for Windows RT. It’s got all the good stuff: voice search, instant results and doodles. Just go to our “Get Your Google Back” site at http://www.google.com/hom [...]

Google & Bing’s 2012 Veterans Day Logos

Nov 11, 2012 at 9:34am ET by Barry Schwartz

Google and Bing have special logos and themes today to honor the United States of America's Veterans on the US .com versions of their web sites. Both search engines typically have logos for this special day, but for some reason, Yahoo does not have a special logo today. In any event, here are the logos from Google and Bing: For last year's Google's Veterans logo see this post. Other Logos: For Halloween, Google Makes Bats Appear For Horror Movie Searches Google’s Interactive “Happy Halloween” Logo For 2012 The Google Dracula Logo: Bram Stoker Books Google Logo Honor [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Logos | Microsoft: Bing

Download Bing Home Pages To Your Computer

Nov 8, 2012 at 2:39pm ET by Barry Schwartz

One of the more popular requests Bing gets is to download their home pages to their desktop. Bing refreshes their home page background graphic at least once daily and often the images on the home page are relaxing and extremely visually appealing. Now, U.S. searchers can click the down arrow at the bottom right corner to download the image. Or they can click the expand icon on the left of that box to expand the image fully. Of course, you can scroll back and forward through the images to see past background themes uses on Bing's home page. Bing's home page is often extremely attra [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Microsoft: Bing

Study: Google Search Share Slips Below 90% In The UK In October

Nov 7, 2012 at 12:10pm ET by Pamela Parker

Only 89.33% of internet searches in the UK were conducted on Google sites last month, according to Experian Hitwise. It's the first time in the last five years that Google search market share in the UK has ever dipped below 90%. While Google's share dropped, other players -- especially Microsoft's Bing -- picked up market share. Bing grew to encompass 4.71% of all searches, which was a 2012 peak for the engine. Experian Hitwise suspects that October's launch of Windows 8 -- which uses Bing as the default search engine -- may have been a factor in Bing's share increase. Yahoo sites an [...]

A Blog On Tracking Failed Search Results: Failed SERPs

Nov 7, 2012 at 11:35am ET by Barry Schwartz

Returning quality search results is not easy, Google and Microsoft have teams of people who work on the problem each day. Unfortunately, finding examples of search results that are not ideal is not all that uncommon. To help track these poor search results, Rishabh Singla started a new blog named Failed SERPs. He posts daily screen shots of examples of how the search results are a failure. For example, Google returns ten search results but all of them are from YouTube. Another example, the searcher looks for a documentary named The Lost Day and Google finds the missing day instead. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Web Search | Microsoft: Bing

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