Bing SEO
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Bing On Search Spam Detection Techniques & Filtering
Microsoft’s Igor Rondel, Principal Development Manager of the Bing Index Quality team published a blog post on the Bing Search blog named Web Spam Filtering. In the post, Igor shares how Bing goes about detecting, processing, and filtering out search spam from their index. Bing outlines some ways they use methods of discovering and then […]
Bing Site Safety Page: Explains Why Sites Are Flagged In Bing’s Search Results
On the Bing Webmaster Blog they announced a new feature named the Bing Site Safety Page. The Bing Site Safety Page will show up in the search results when Bing has flagged a specific site as having a safety issue. Bing will then show the searcher what the issue is with the site, hoping the […]
Study: Top 5 Search Engines See Search Traffic Drop By As Much As 31% Since December 2013
A newly released report from Shareaholic claims the top five search engines — Google, Bing, Yahoo, Ask.com and AOL — have all experienced a decline in search traffic since December of 2013. Using data from December 2013 through May 2014, Shareaholic evaluated aggregate organic search traffic numbers from more than 300,000 publishers reaching an audience […]
Bing Sitemaps Best Practices & Large Site Sitemaps Issues
Bing has posted on the Bing Webmaster blog their best practices on how to implement XML Sitemaps files for your site. The post includes a large topic on how the best practices apply to really large web sites, with many URLs. Bing’s Six Best Practices For Sitemaps: Follow the sitemaps reference at www.sitemaps.org. Common mistakes […]
Learnings From SMX London: The Impact Of Social On Search
SEOs and Social Marketers speculate on the impact that Social Media marketing has on how well their websites perform in search results. There has been much conjecture with many people interpreting an array of correlations as causation. Both Google’s Matt Cutts and Bing’s Duane Forrester have come out (on more than one occasion) to emphatically […]
Bing To Shut Down Webmaster Forums
Bing is shutting down their Bing Webmaster Forums by the end of this month or early June. Duane Forrester of Bing said that the forums were turning into the place Bing expected and they have decided to shut it down to give them the “time and resources to focus energies in other directions.” So what […]
Bing Webmaster Roadshow 2014 Takes Search Experts On 4-City Tour This Summer
Bing announced today it will be hosting the Bing Webmaster Roadshow 2014 starting next month, with stops in four cities including Chicago, Atlanta, Boston and Houston. In partnership with Inc. Magazine, the events will include panel discussions with Message Medium’s Maisha Walker, Bruce Clay of Bruce Clay Inc., aimClear founder Marty Weintraub, along with Bing […]
Bing: Adding Markup & Schema Is “Worth” It For Search Engines
Duane Forrester from Bing posted a new article on the Bing Search Blog named Mark It Up. In the article, Duane explained the upmost importance of marking up your content with schema and meta data. Duane said “it’s worth completing this work to help the engines understand your content more clearly.” Why? Duane explained that […]
Bing On Links: You Should Never Know In Advance Where A Link Is Coming From
Duane Forrester from Microsoft’s Bing team wrote a blog post today on the official Bing Search blog named 10 SEO myths reviewed. There are many good and obvious points Duane makes in the post but one point he makes about links is very revealing. Duane wrote: You should never know in advance a link is […]
10 Key Takeaways From Meet The Search Engines @ SMX West
Another SMX is in the books! This show definitely had one of the most engaged attendee groups I have ever seen at any conference in recent memory. The polite, attentive search engine marketers weren’t there to just network and enjoy the San Jose sun. They were interested and looking for answers. And on day three […]
Bing: Poor Grammar & Typos May Result In Lower Search Rankings
Duane Forrester from Bing wrote a blog post on the Bing Webmaster Blog suggesting that Bing’s search ranking algorithms do in fact consider poor grammar, typos and poor language to be part of their ranking factors. Duane said, “just as you’re judging others’ writing, so the engines judge yours.” Meaning, Bing does look at how […]
Bing Webmaster Guidelines Updated To Include Demotions For Keyword Stuffing
Bing has quietly updated their Webmaster Guidelines to include a stern warning to webmasters who think they can use keyword stuffing techniques to manipulate their rankings and get away with it. The warning says Bing may demote the site or delist the site that is using keyword stuffing. The new section was added sometime yesterday […]
Bing: Don’t Be Held Hostage Over The Perfect Domain Name
Duane Forrester, Bing’s Senior Product Manager, posted on the Bing Webmaster Blog that you should not be too crazed over picking an expensive domain name for your new web site. He said, even when you buy old domain names that are pricy, those domain names may have some bad history. Domain names with bad history […]
Bing: It’s A Myth That Keyword Rich Domain Names Improve Search Rankings
Microsoft Bing’s Senior Product Manager, Duane Forrester, wrote last night at the Bing Webmaster Blog that it is only a myth that in today’s ranking algorithms that a keyword rich domain name will make enough of an impact on your rankings to give you a major boost above your competitors. Duane said that maybe “10 […]
Bing Webmaster Tools Adds Connected Pages Dashboard
Duane Forrester, the Senior Product Manager at Bing announced a new feature within Bing Webmaster Tools named the “Connected Pages Dashboard.” Formerly known as linked pages, connected pages is a way for Bing to allow you to tell them what pages you own under your social network. Once you verify these social profiles, Bing connects […]
Bing’s New Music Video Search Results Page Showcases Popular Videos With Related Artists & Albums Lists
Bing has rolled out a new music video search results page today. From now on, when searching for a music video by song title, artist or album, users will see the following box at the top of their search results, showcasing the “most popular” music video related to the search, along with details and a […]
Bing Webmaster Tools Adds Smart Search Page Preview Tool
Bing announced on their Webmaster Blog that they have introduced a new feature within Bing Webmaster Tools for managing your Smart Search Previews. The Page Preview tool, under the “Configure My Site” section in Webmaster Tools, enables webmasters manage their page previews. It allows you to request a block of a page preview image from […]
Bing Gets ‘Klout-orship” As Verified Klout Snapshots Now Identify Authors & Content In Bing
Klout has becoming a much more powerful tool than simply measuring social significance. Bing and Klout have teamed up to form a puesdo-authorship alliance that will appear in the search results pages. A new Klout-verified ‘Snapshot’ will show in Bing along with social icons, Klout scores and even the two most influential public moments from […]
Bing SEO Ranking Factors 2013 Study By SearchMetrics
Searchmetrics has released their SEO ranking factors for Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, today. Similar to their Google ranking factors, Searchmetrics analyzed 10,000 popular keywords and 300,000 websites appearing in the top 30 search results and looked at how various factors correlated with rankings. The top five key findings were: (1) Top brands rank higher on […]
What The Government Shutdown Means For .gov SEO
As part of the US government shut down, many .gov sites have also shut down, replaced by messages like this: “Due to the lapse in federal government funding, this website is not available. We sincerely regret this inconvenience.” But one day, the government will start up again and government agencies will once again focus on ensuring […]
Bing Tests Sub Secondary Level Deep Links In Search Listings
Bing is running an experiment with their deep links in the search results. Now Bing is testing displaying sub or secondary level deep links for some search results. That means that under a search listing that has deep links, you may see additional sub-level deep links beneath the main deep links. Here is a picture […]
Bing Details Four Ways Not To Build Links
Duane Forrester, Senior Product Manager at Microsoft Bing, wrote a blog post on the Bing Webmaster Blog, detailing four ways you do not want to build links to your site. The four ways not to build links by Bing include: (1) Blind Requests: Don’t simply mass or template email web sites blindly for links. Don’t […]
Bing Ads To Launch Excel Add-In To Streamline Campaign Management
In good news for PPC Excel enthusiasts, Bing Ads announced it is beta testing an Excel Add-In to manage campaign data and download and post directly to the Bing Ads data center. Here’s what the process will look like: Essentially users will have the option to use Bing Ads Editor or the Excel Add-In. The […]
Bing Updates Deep Links Management While Google Displays Up To Ten Sitelinks
Bing announced changes to the way they allow webmasters to manage their “deep links” in the search results, while Google has quietly added up to ten sitelinks for a navigational query. Bing Deep Links Update Vincent Wehren, Senior Program Manager at Bing Webmaster Tools, announced on the Bing Webmaster blog that they have updated the […]
Bing Experiments With Social Search By Adding New Bing Boards To Search Results
Bing announced today that they are adding a new social element to their search results with the introduction of Bing Boards. Currently being created by, “…a small group of food and lifestyle bloggers, experts and social influencers,” the Bing Boards are a collection of images, videos and links focused on a specific topic pulled together […]
SMX Advanced: Microsoft’s Gurdeep Singh Pall Talks About Voice Search, Entities & More
Day two of our SMX Advanced event is getting started with our second keynote event: a conversation with Microsoft’s Gurdeep Singh Pall. He’s the VP for the Information Platform & Experience team at Microsoft, and is responsible for vision, product strategy and R&D for Bing. Search Engine Land’s founding editor, Danny Sullivan, is leading the […]
Bing Officially Releases Bing XML Sitemap Plugin 1.0
After releasing a preview of the Bing sitemap plugin a few months ago, Bing is ready to officially launch the Bing XML Sitemap Plugin 1.0 to the public. This sitemap plugin allows webmasters to easily create XML sitemap files for their websites that can be submitted to Bing Webmaster Tools or other search engines. It […]
Bing Webmaster Tools Adds Malware Re-Evaluation & Geo-Targeting Tools
Bing announced two new features for Bing Webmaster Tools. First, you can now see more details on malware issues impacting your site and be able to submit a malware re-evaluation request. Second, you can now geo-target specific pages, directories or your whole site within Bing Webmaster Tools. Bing Malware Re-Evaluation Bing always had a notification […]
Study: Top Reason A User Would Block A Site From A Search? Too Many Ads
An online survey examining SEO assumptions by SurveyMonkey found that the No. 1 reason users would block a website from their search results was if the website contained too many ads. If given an option to remove a website from future search results, 68 percent of the respondents said they would block a website because […]
Study: Many Searchers Choose Google Over Bing Even When Google’s Name Is On Bing’s Results
In a recent study by SurveyMonkey examining SEO assumptions, respondents were given two search result pages, one with a page header labeled “Google” and the other with a page header labeled “Bing,” and asked which page of results they preferred. Even when the page header labels were swapped, more users preferred the Google search results. […]
Bing Offers Recommendations for SEO-Friendly AJAX: Suggests HTML5 pushState
Bing has announced support for HTML5 pushState as a way to implement AJAX on a site in a way that enables Bing to crawl and index the URLs and content. As Google has supported this implementation since early 2012, site owners finally have an AJAX option that can be crawled and indexed by both major […]
SMX West: The Search Police Video With Google’s Matt Cutts & Bing’s Duane Forrester
One of the highlights from the SMX West show a week ago was the session named “The Search Police: Matt & Duane’s Excellent Search Engine Adventure.” The panel featured Google’s Matt Cutts and Bing’s Duane Forrester as Bill & Ted with Danny Sullivan playing Rufus. Matt (Bill) and Duane (Ted) both give presentations and then […]
Bing Webmaster Tools Adds Site Move Tool
Bing announced a new feature for Bing Webmaster Tools – the ability to inform Bing of a site move. The new Bing Site Move Tool allows you to not just move from one domain to another domain but also from within a site; URLs to URLs. Moving From Within The Same Domain Name If you […]
New: Bing Sitemap Plugin Helps Webmasters Create XML Sitemap Files
Bing announced, on its Bing Webmaster Blog, a new feature that helps webmasters create two types of XML Sitemaps. Bing created a server-side application that works on both IIS and Apache servers that helps you create a comprehensive Sitemap and, also, a recently updated Sitemap. The binaries can be downloaded at the Microsoft download site. […]
Bing Tags Expands, Makes Pages Linked To Your Profile Public
Search engines continue to go old school, encouraging people to “tag” content in a way that makes it feel like it’s 1999 all over again. Today, Bing makes another push in that direction, making content you tag with “Bing Tags” more visibile. Honestly, I feel like this tagging crazy is simply Google and Bing falling […]
Bing Publishes Its Webmaster Guidelines
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 […]
US Senate Committee Asks Google, Yahoo & Bing To Fight Bait-And-Switch Moving Scams
The US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation has written to the major US search engines of Google, Yahoo and Bing asking them to examine how some moving services are using “bait-and-switch” tactics on customers who find them through search results. Moving Ripoffs Each search engine received the same letter, covering how a committee […]
SERPs.com Google & Bing “Weather Report” Tool
SERPs.com has quietly launched a SERPs Volatility Index, which aims to work like the MozCast tool to track search results fluctuations and help webmasters know if there was an algorithm update at Google and Bing. While MozCast only tracks Google, SERPs.com tracks both Google and Bing. SERPs.com also shows a 30-day and 90-day volatility charge. […]
Bing Webmaster Tools Reports Adds Percentage Changes
Bing has added percent changes, deltas, to some of the various reports within Bing Webmaster Tools. The percent changes show the difference from the period selected to the same time period before that. So if you selected the past 30-days, Bing will show the percent change from the previous 30-day period. This applies for Clicks […]
Yes, Bing Has Human Search Quality Raters & Here’s How They Judge Web Pages
A web page that definitively satisfies a searcher’s intent is “Perfect,” and should appear at the top of Bing’s search results. On the other end of the scale, spammy web pages and pages that almost no searcher would find useful are deemed “Bad.” That’s a bit of how Bing instructs the people in its Human […]