Duane Forrester, Bing’s Webmaster Outreach, Announces He Is Leaving Microsoft

After being fired and then rehired from Bing within a year, Microsoft's Duane Forrester announces he is leaving the company.

Chat with SearchBot

duane forrester bing

Duane Forrester, Senior Product Manager at Microsoft, responsible for Webmaster Outreach at Bing, has announced on his personal blog that he is moving on from Bing to do his own small business venture.

His last day at Microsoft is November 13, 2015. He did say that Bing is in good hands and the Bing Webmaster Tools is not at risk, nor is their outreach.

Since Duane Forrester has been the face of communication between Bing and webmasters, the big question many are asking is who will be that new face? Many considered that Duane Forrester was to Bing as Matt Cutts was to Google.

Matt Cutts is gone, at least for now, and Google is keeping the new head of Web spam a secret. The question is, will Bing come out with a new name for their webmaster outreach?

Duane Forrester has an interesting history with Microsoft. He was first hired almost eight years ago to head up SEO for the MSN properties. Then he moved into the role at Bing Search in webmaster outreach and Webmaster Tools. Then he was fired in mass layoffs, only to be re-hired two months later. Now, less than 10 months after being rehired to work at Bing, Duane has decided to leave.

Why Is Duane Forrester Leaving Bing?

Duane Forrester said he is leaving Bing to get off the “freeway” and take a “scenic path” on his journey. He said his father “ran a small business for 16 years,” doing everything from “cleaning rooms, fixing the plumbing, mowing the grass, cleaning the pool, reroofing the building, moving furniture and so on,” and trust me, at big companies like Microsoft, everyone has a job. He seems to want to get into running his own small business; he wants to do everything and take on the small business role once again.

One would assume he will start his own search marketing agency, like many Googlers who have left the company to start their own agencies. But time will tell. For now, he is still at Microsoft until November 13.


About the author

Barry Schwartz
Staff
Barry Schwartz is a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry can be followed on Twitter here.

Get the must-read newsletter for search marketers.