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Tag: Bing

  • Moz Founder Rand Fishkin On Facebook’s Approach To Search

    Last month, Facebook launched an update to its search experience enabling users to search keywords and get actual posts as results. This is arguably the most significant search feature Facebook has ever added beyond he ability to find a person or Page. It enables you to see what others have said about any given topic.

    When Facebook made its update, it also dropped Bing from the equation. Microsoft’s search engine used to supplement Facebook’s results with more from the web. Facebook no longer includes web results at all. Moz (formerly SEOmoz) co-founder Rand Fishkin thinks that may change, and that Facebook might just do it itself.

    Might Facebook Take On The Web?

    In his 10 Predictions for the Marketing World in 2015 post, Fishkin said, “2015 will be the year Facebook begins including some form of web content (not on Facebook’s site) in their search functionality. Facebook severed their search relationship with Bing in 2014, and I’m going to make a very risky prediction that in 2015, we’ll see Facebook’s new search emerge and use some form of non-Facebook web data. Whether they’ll actually build their own crawler or merely license certain data from outside their properties is another matter, but I think Facebook’s shown an interest in getting more sophisticated with their ad offerings, and any form of search data/history about their users would provide a powerful addition to what they can do today.”

    We reached out to Fishkin, a thirteen-year veteran in search marketing, for some additional thoughts on Facebook’s search efforts.

    “With Bing, Facebook was simply showing external results (like a metasearch engine),” he tells WebProNews. “I think if they use their own crawlers to gather data and a system to serve it, there will be a more holistic, cohesive experience, likely biased/filtered by some of the things Facebook knows about the user(s) doing the searching.”

    Are Facebook’s Changes Having An Impact?

    Facebook’s recent search improvements are certainly significant in functionality. But are they having a significant impact on how people find information so far? Will they more so in the future?

    Fishkin says, “No, and I think in the next few years, the answer will continue to be mostly no (at least if we’re talking about websearch kinds of information vs. ‘where’s my friend’s party Friday night?’ or ‘What does so-and-so’s new boyfriend look like?’). But, long term, I think there’s a possibility. If their early efforts show promise and a direction, I think we can extrapolate from there. For now, I’m not sold.”

    Facebook has been releasing a lot of standalone apps. Among these are dedicated apps for messaging, for managing Pages, and for Groups. Would they launch a dedicated search app? Should they?

    “No and probably no,” Fishkin says. “I think Facebook’s castle is their social graph and the private postings of people to whom other people are connected. They should continue to release products and apps that help build that moat, but for right now, broad search doesn’t fit that world, IMO.”

    Advice for businesses for increasing visibility in Facebook search

    Regardless of whether or not people are actively using it as such, Facebook search gives users new ways of obtaining information. This must mean that businesses, who have suffered drastic declines in organic reach in the News Feed, have some new opportunities to get in front of those actually searching. Fishkin’s advice is as follows.

    “Do remarkable things that people on Facebook want to talk about and share,” he says. “And if that’s too much, at least make sure all your business details are as up-to-date and accurate as possible on Facebook, and that you’re sharing things your followers/fans on that network will actually care about (even if that’s only a few times a year). Just make sure you don’t make Facebook the center of your online promotional efforts – save that for your website and use Facebook to drive traffic to it. You should never build your castle in someone else’s walled garden.”

    I think a lot of people learned that lesson the hard way over the past year.

    Image via Moz

  • Twitter Translation Is Back, Still Bing-Powered

    Bing-powered translations have returned to Twitter.

    The social network announced the news in a tweet, saying that it was introducing tweet translation with Bing translator.

    “Introducing” really means “Reintroducing”, as Twitter used to have Bing-powered translations – but they were instant and appeared automatically below tweets in foreign (to you) languages. Twitter axed that feature in August of last year.

    Translation tool appears as a globe icon in the upper-right-hand corner of tweets. It’s now available on desktop, iOS, Android, and Tweetdeck.

    A disclaimer as to why the translations are sometimes shitty:

    “Although Bing Translator relies on advanced translation software to provide Tweet translations, the results still vary and often fall below the accuracy and fluency of translations provided by a professional translator. For this reason, the original text is always displayed above its translation.”

    Still, it’s better than nothing.

  • Google Shows Concern Over Firefox Switch To Yahoo

    As you may know, Yahoo recently became the default search engine in Mozilla’s Firefox browser after Google had held the spot for a decade. As Yahoo’s search market share has already benefited from the switch, Google is telling Firefox users to switch back.

    On Wednesday, Google tweeted this helpful little video demonstrating how to change the default search experience, in case users who care enough about Google to follow the company on Twitter couldn’t figure out how to do that.

    Danny Sullivan points out that Google is now telling Firefox users who visit its homepage to set the default experience back to Google as well. It displays a message that says, “Get to Google faster. Make Google your default search engine.”

    Yahoo itself has been telling visitors to its homepage to “upgrade” to the new Firefox:

    A couple weeks ago, StatCounter released some data on search market share in the U.S. finding that Yahoo saw its highest amount of that in over five years in December, thanks to its new Mozilla partnership.

    “The move by Mozilla has had a definite impact on US search,” said StatCounter CEO Aodhan Cullen. “The question now is whether Firefox users switch back to Google.”

    It will be interesting to see January’s data. Google is obviously worried enough about it to tweet out explanations on how to switch back.

    This week, comScore also put out its monthly look at U.S. desktop search engine rankings for December. From that:

    Google Sites led the U.S. explicit core search market in December with 65.4 percent market share, followed by Microsoft Sites with 19.7 percent (up 0.1 percentage points) and Yahoo Sites with 11.8 percent (up 1.6 percentage points). Ask Network accounted for 2 percent of explicit core searches, followed by AOL, Inc. with 1.2 percent.

    18.7 billion explicit core searches were conducted in December, with Google Sites ranking first with 12.2 billion (up 2 percent). Microsoft Sites ranked second with 3.7 billion searches (up 5 percent), followed by Yahoo Sites with 2.2 billion (up 21 percent), Ask Network with 372 million (up 5 percent) and AOL, Inc. with 222 million.

    As its share rises, Yahoo is also testing out a search results page layout that more closely resembles Google’s:

    You’d have to think a similar look and feel to Google could keep some used to the Google experience from Firefox from bothering to switch back compared to a more drastic change such as Yahoo’s current layout.

    Apparently Bing’s actually testing a similar look as well.

    This might not be a good time for Google to be losing any search market share, considering that analysts have already grown concerned by slowing growth in its core ad business.

    Images via Mozilla, Google, Yahoo, StatCounter, comScore

  • Wow, There Are A Lot Of Services Using Yelp Data

    Yelp just announced a pretty significant milestone. It now has over 100,000 developers using its API to integrate its data into their products. Regardless of whether or not consumers actually turn to the Yelp app or Yelp.com to find business information, they’re going to be exposed to it one way or another through third-party apps and services.

    “Developers and partners of all shapes and sizes, from tiny startups to Fortune 500 companies are using the Yelp API to help their users make better decisions within their own apps,” a Yelp spokesperson tells WebProNews. “Our goal is to make sure that every developer can get what they need in terms of local search and data to build, launch, and improve their apps.”

    “Consumers rely on Yelp’s trustworthy ratings, reviews, and accurate business details to make important decisions every day – finding a place to eat, selecting a handyman to help them fix up their home, or uncovering the best place to buy a gift,” said Mike Ghaffary, VP of Business and Corporate Development at Yelp, in a blog post. “These days, you can also find the same great Yelp content in Apple products; Volvo, Mercedes Benz, and Toyota vehicles; third-party apps such as Eat24, Microsoft, Trulia, and Yahoo; and a variety of cutting-edge startups like AddressReport, DuckDuckGo, and Wildcard, just to mention a few.”

    Yahoo, Microsoft, and Apple are obviously big ones, particularly when it comes to searching for information. These companies all have a common enemy in Google, and Yelp has helped the others boost their local search offerings to better compete. Search “mexican restaurants in lexington” on Bing, and guess what’s front and center at the top of the page.

    Last year, Yahoo began supplementing its own local results with those from Yelp. As we saw, some businesses were frustrated with the Yelp reviews appearing on Yahoo, and that’s a reminder to businesses that they have thousands of places where there business info may be appearing.

    Apple has Yelp integrated into iOS and OS X in various apps and operating system features.

    Other integrations Yelp chose to highlight are Trulia and AddressReport. Trulia uses it in the home search space. It gives home buyers an idea of the types of businesses that are in a given neighborhood.

    AddressReport provides information on specific addresses including what is nearby, and uses Yelp reviews for sections like “Where you’ll dine”.

    “Yelp is committed to providing a robust and unparalleled local search experience via the Yelp API,” Ghaffary said. “Our goal is to make sure that every developer can get what they need in terms of local search and data to build, launch, and improve their apps. Whether tinkering with a side project, launching a new startup, scaling a company, or working at a large public company, Yelp will be a resource for all developers.”

    It sounds like Yelp has plenty more to come in terms of what services will be able to do with its data. The company says it will be launching “off the shell” tools so anyone can use applicable Yelp data in their experiences even if they’re not technical-minded. I guess we’ll stay tuned for that.

    Images via Bing, Yahoo, Yelp

  • Bing Brings Back Webmaster Guy After Laying Him Off

    It’s been an interesting year in terms of search engine to webmaster communication. Both Google’s Matt Cuts and his Bing counterpart Duane Forrester went away.

    Matt announced that he was taking an extended leave, and then later extended that leave indefinitely. It remains to be seen whether or not we’ll see him back at Google, and if so, in what capacity. He did share some thoughts on that recently.

    Forrester was laid off at Microsoft, as so many others have been, but after a couple of months, he announced that he’s returning to the company in pretty much the same role (via Search Engine Land). He writes on his personal blog:

    You’re still going to see me blogging on the Webmaster Tools blog and I’ll be at the conferences as well. But as you’ve become accustomed to lately, you’ll also hear more voices than just mine in the mix. This means more and deeper insights from the various teams within Bing and part of my new role will be to keep this train charging down the tracks!

    In the past I worked closely with the Webmaster team to help bring the tools and services you needed to market, and that work will continue as we move forward. Frankly, that group is so strong, there’s little need for my hands on the product directly, and for that I am grateful. The Engineering team that brought you our world-class Webmaster Tools has been running the show the entire time I’ve been away, so the Tools remain in excellent hands day-to-day.

    I’m also going to be spending time working with folks on the API side of the house, seeking ways to grow engagement with our data-level opportunities for businesses. It’s no secret that the data-layer will continue to be one of the most important aspects of search moving forward. The trick is helping businesses understand how to access it and leverage it for their own success.

    Last week, Bing launched some uddates for its iOS apps.

  • Bing Launches Updates For iPhone, iPad Apps

    Bing Launches Updates For iPhone, iPad Apps

    Bing announced some updates to its apps for iPhone and iPad in time for the holidays, when many will no doubt be unwrapping these devices.

    The iPhone app has a redesigned home screen with the larger size of the newer models in mind. The search box has been moved to the middle of the screen, and it’s been made larger.

    “We also made it easier for you to enjoy our beautiful image of the day,” Bing says in a blog post. “Just tap anywhere underneath the search box, and all the elements of the app disappear, creating an immersive, full-screen image experience. And if you want to see yesterday’s image, just swipe from the left.”

    They also changed the layout for weather, trending news, and images, enabling users to swipe from the bottom of the home screen to have inf zoom to full screen. There are additional changes to the iPhone app, but Bing says it wants people to discover them for themselves rather than telling you what they are.

    “On iPad, we have taken advantage of the latest in iOS8 to make the experiences you already use even more powerful,” Bing says. “The translate extension that we brought to our iPhone app a couple months ago is now available on iPad so that you can instantly translate web pages in either the Bing app or your default browser to a desired language.”

    The Bing widget for the Notification Center will also serve the Bing image of the day and trending stories.

    Image via Bing

  • Facebook Gets Rid Of Bing In Search Results

    Last week, Facebook began rolling out an update to its search experience, finally enabling users to search keywords and get actual posts from their network. One part of the update that the company didn’t exactly announce, but that some have noticed, is that the search experience no longer includes web results from Bing .

    Facebook and Bing have been partners for years. In addition to Facebook getting some special treatment in Bing’s own results, Bing has been the supplier of supplemental search results in Facebook searches. When no actual content from Facebook was a right fit for a search, web results from Bing were offered as kind of a last resort for information retrieval.

    It’s unclear how often people actually used these Bing results from Facebook searches. My guess is not very. I can only speak for myself, but I can probably count the times I’ve relied on these results for finding something on one hand. Maybe less.

    Facebook appears to not value them much either. Now, when you search Facebook for something, you’re presented with these options: Posts, People, Photos, Pages, Places, ,Groups, Apps, and Events. If you can’t find what you’re looking for from those options, why are you even searching on Facebook to begin with? That seems to be the mentality of Facebook.

    Apparently Facebook’s relationship with Microsoft hasn’t completely ended. Reuters shared a statement from the social network:

    “We’re not currently showing web search results in Facebook Search because we’re focused on helping people find what’s been shared with them on Facebook,” a company spokesperson told Reuters. “We continue to have a great partnership with Microsoft in lots of different areas.”

    I guess Facebook has the upper hand in that relationship. It gets its content on Microsoft’s search engine, and Microsoft gets…the privilege of showing Facebook content to its users?

    Image via Facebook

  • Bing Adds Quick Answers For Local Info

    Bing Adds Quick Answers For Local Info

    Microsoft announced that Bing will now display quick answers to queries related to local information. These come in the form of “facts” at the top of the search page, which provide things like phone numbers for restaurants, hours of local stores, and directions to people’s houses.

    “Need help figuring out whether that unbelievable sale item is still around and you can’t waste another moment? Or want to celebrate your savings with a nice dinner? Just search for the phone number and we’ll give it to you right there,” says Microsoft. “Now, how to get there? Just ask for directions and you can see a quick answer showing the best route with distance and travel time information. Click on turn by turn directions to get the full route details.”

    Examples of queries you could use (as provided by Microsoft) include: How to reach 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271 from Brooklyn?; Directions to 920 Dexter Ave N, Seattle, WA; Travel time to 440 Terry Ave, Seattle.

    You can also use “reviews” or “address” commands for places.

    The directions feature is currently only available in the US, UK and France, while reviews and address answers are only available on desktop.

    Images via Microsoft

  • Bing Ads Campaign Planner Gets An Update

    Microsoft announced the launch of a new version of its Campaign Planner tool for the holidays. The tool, which was first released in September, has new features for vertical and product trends, keyword research and competitive insights.

    “Campaign Planner’s search volume research tool can be used broadly to pull general vertical or product trends,” explains Microsoft’s Chan Liu. “The left hand navigation puts you in the driver’s seat, giving you the capability to drill down and browse pre-defined verticals and sub-verticals that may be relevant to your business. Electing a vertical pulls up a default trending line graph, giving a quick snapshot into seasonality, and also provides performance numbers of the last seven days. Included is an actual number for search volume – the total number of times the list of related keywords was searched in the last seven days! The tool also offers a current view of device breakout, and advertising benchmarks including average CPC. Understanding the device mix should be a consideration when making website decisions or optimizing landing pages across devices.”

    “Want more insight into the top products being searched within a vertical? Click on the ‘Products’ tab,” adds Liu. “This view displays search volume by popular products. This information shows the volume differences between similar products in the vertical, and can help guide key business decisions. Define focus areas, review campaign budgets and expand keywords based on current consumer search trends and behavior.”

    With the keyword research feature, you can just type the keyword into the search box, and get recent performance and trends. The view can be modified by daily, weekly, monthly or yearly. There are also options for “Search volume by location” and “Performance by Device”.

    The competitive insight feature gives you info on top advertisers bidding in a vertical or across a selected product. You can see up to 20 top domains, their ad coverage and average position on the Bing search results page.

    Microsoft goes into more detail about all of this here.

    Image via Microsoft

  • Yahoo Sees 3x Jump In Firefox Searches With Browser Update

    As you may know, Yahoo recently entered a five-year partnership with Mozilla to see Yahoo Search become the default search experience in Firefox. This is a big deal in search because the browser has had Google in this spot for the past decade. It gives Yahoo a chance to gain some searches it wasn’t otherwise getting.

    The first version of Firefox – 34 – to utilize Yahoo as the default launched this week, and it appears to already be helping Yahoo significantly.

    StatCounter says on December 2nd in the US, Yahoo search was used three times more on Firefox 34 than on Firefox 33.

    The firm found that Yahoo usage on Firefox 34 was 29.4% compared to 9.6% for Firefox 33. Google search usage by Firefox users dropped from 82.1% to 63.5% as they upgraded to the new version, it found, and Bing declined from 6.5% on Firefox 33 to 5.8% on Firefox 34.

    While this is obviously a limited data set, this brings up a pretty interesting point in that Mozilla’s move to Yahoo could actually hurt Bing. In the past, users who simply didn’t want to use Google may have switched their search preference to Bing, whereas now, perhaps they’re more likely to just leave it at Yahoo.

    We’ll look forward to seeing an update on these numbers as users have had more time to update their browsers and their search preferences.

    “Firefox 34 is still being rolled out so its usage is currently quite low. It will be interesting to see how this develops,” said StatCounter CEO Aodhan Cullen. “At the moment the change is having a negligible impact on overall search share in the US, but if this early usage trend on Firefox 34 continues then Yahoo could be on course to gain a number of percentage points.”

    According to StatCounter, on December 2nd, overall search share across all browsers in the US was 78% for Google, 12.4% for Bing and 7.9% for Yahoo.

    In the meantime, it seems Yahoo and Bing are vying to replace Google as the default experience for Apple’s Safari browser, which should have a significant impact on market share for either. It remains to be seen whether or not Apple moves away from Google here, but if past moves by the company are any indication, it’s a very real possibility.

    Yahoo’s most recent earnings report illustrated that its search business has begun to perform better than its display ad business. It’s deals to become the search provider for third-party services that give engines like Yahoo and Bing the best chance to gain some market share against Google.

    Image via StatCounter

  • Yahoo Bing Network Search/Click Volumes Double YoY

    Yahoo Search has been making headlines lately thanks to a five-year partnership with Mozilla, which sees the search engine become the default in the Firefox browser. The version that implements this just came out this week.

    When Yahoo released its latest earnings report, it revealed that its search business is actually doing better than its display ad business. It would seem that things have been looking up lately for Yahoo Search, which in the time before Google, was the dominant means of searching the Internet.

    While we’ve heard that Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer isn’t a huge fan of the search and advertising deal Yahoo has with Microsoft, which was made before her time in the driver’s seat, we really haven’t heard a whole lot about the “Search Alliance” lately.

    On Tuesday, Microsoft posted an update about its performance on its advertising blog. It says that the Yahoo Bing Network’s search and click volumes from smartphone users have more than doubled year-over-year, and that click volumes have outpaced growth in search volume. This, the company says, demonstrates “the high degree of consumer engagement and relevance of mobile ads on the Yahoo Bing Network.”

    The technology and telecommunications verticals saw 300% year-over-year growth, while Retail, Autos, and Financial Services each at least doubled in click volume.

    Microsoft tells advertisers they can expect more targeting improvements, app extensions, mobile product ads, and universal event tracking.

    Image via Bing

  • Microsoft Office Ditches Clip Art For Creative Commons Images From Bing

    Microsoft has faced the facts that nobody really wants to use lame clip art in the year 2015. As this year draws to a close, so does the era of clip art for Microsoft Office.

    Now, users are going to be able to utilize Creative Commons images from Bing Image Search rather than the clip art library they previously had access to. In a post on the Microsoft Office blog, the Office 365 team writes:

    Starting today, customers searching for Online Pictures in Office desktop products worldwide will view and download royalty-free images curated through Bing Images. The Office.com Clip Art and image library has closed shop. Usage of Office’s image library has been declining year-to-year as customers rely more on search engines.

    Bing Image Search has higher quality images that are more up-to-date. For example, searching for “cellphone” gives more variety and modern looking phones instead of the old-school bricks from Clip Art. Also, Bing uses a copyright filter based on the Creative Commons licensing system. These are images you can use, share, or modify for either personal or commercial use (settings can be switched to Show all web results to view more images).

    Presumably, the photographers behind the images being used for this won’t have a problem with this like some do with Yahoo’s play to make money on Creative Commons Flickr images.

    Image via Microsoft

  • Google Has Some Right To Be Forgotten Guidelines To Work With

    As we here in the U.S. were entering holiday mode last week, official “Right to Be Forgotten” guidelines made their way to the public over in Europe. These come from the Article 29 Working Party, which is made up of data protection officials from throughout the European Union.

    In case you haven’t been keeping up, the Right to Be Forgotten came as the result of a ruling a few months ago. It enables people to request that search results about them be removed from search engines. Search engines like Google have been tasked with determining whether or not requests are legitimate as well as which ones to act upon. Search engines obviously don’t like removing results because it’s a form of censorship.

    Now, at least the engines have some guidelines to use as criteria for their evaluations rather than just kind of wining it as Google has been doing so far. The search engine, for the record, has been discussing approaches with various experts around the world.

    The new guidelines are as follows:

    Does the search result relate to a natural person – i.e. an individual? And does the search result come up against a search on the data subject’s name?

    Does the data subject play a role in public life? Is the data subject a public figure?

    Is the data subject a minor?

    Is the data accurate?

    Is the data relevant and not excessive?

    Is the information sensitive within the meaning of Article 8 of the Directive 95/46/EC?

    Is the data up to date? Is the data being made available for longer than is necessary for the purpose of the processing?

    Is the data processing causing prejudice to the data subject? Does the data have a disproportionately negative privacy impact on the data subject?

    Does the search result link to information that puts the data subject at risk?

    In what context was the information published?

    Was the original content published in the context of journalistic purposes?

    Does the publisher of the data have a legal power – or a legal obligation– to make the personal data publicly available?

    Does the data relate to a criminal offence?

    Here’s the full document, which elaborates on each of these, courtesy of Search Engine Land (or you can find it on the government website here):

    The blog also points to some findings from Forget.me including that Bing has only received about seven hundred requests to Google’s one hundred and sixty thousands.

    Image via Google

  • Bing Reveals Top Searches Of 2014

    Bing Reveals Top Searches Of 2014

    Bing has released its top searches of 2014.

    “Each year, billions of searches on Bing.com reveal the people, moments and events that captivate people’s attention,” a Bing spokesperson tells WebProNews in an email. “From celebrities, to sports controversies, to top apps and vacation spots, Bing’s top searches reveal a unique, behind the scenes look at the people, moments and events that shaped 2014.”

    Kim Kardashian became the most searched person this year, taking the place of Beyoncé.

    “From her buzzworthy Vogue cover, and extravagant wedding to her photos that ‘broke’ the Internet, Kim and her famous family held our attention throughout the year,” the spokesperson said.

    Here are some noteworthy top ten lists from Bing’s findings:

    Most searched person:

    1. Kim Kardashian
    2. Beyoncé
    3. Miley Cyrus
    4. Katy Perry
    5. Justin Bieber
    6. Joan Rivers
    7. Jennifer Lopez
    8. Kendall Jenner
    9. Kaley Cuoco
    10. Robin Williams

    Most Searched Devices:

    1. iPhone 6
    2. Xbox One
    3. Fitbit
    4. iPad
    5. Surface Pro 3
    6. Kindle Fire
    7. Windows Phone
    8. Galaxy S4
    9. Chromecast
    10. Google Glass

    Most Searched Apps:

    1. Facebook
    2. Twitter
    3. Instagram
    4. Skype
    5. Vine
    6. Snapchat
    7. Candy Crush Saga
    8. WhatsApp
    9. Angry Birds
    10. Farmville

    Most Searched News Stories:

    1. World Cup
    2. Super Bowl
    3. Missing Malaysia Airlines jet
    4. Winter Olympics
    5. The rise of ISIS
    6. Ray Rice controversy
    7. Shooting in Ferguson, Missouri
    8. Ebola outbreak
    9. Brittany Maynard Death with Dignity
    10. Ukraine (Crimea)-Russia conflict

    As you’ll notice, half of the most searched apps of 2014 are social media apps. Microsoft is eager to point out that Skype is the only video communication app on the list. It’s also worth noting that Microsoft devices beat out Google devices, though these lists could look significantly different when Google releases its versions, which let’s face it, are a better reflection of society at large based on market share.

    You can look at additional search trend info from Bing here.

    Image via BIng

  • Could Google Lose Apple Like It Lost Firefox?

    Google may be in danger of losing a major deal for its search engine, which could result in a reduction in market share.

    Google has already lost out to Yahoo as the default search engine for Mozilla’s Firefox browser in the U.S. While Google will remain the default experience for Firefox in Europe, that could change in the future. Mozilla also elected to go with Yandex and Baidu in Russia and China respectively.

    According to a new report from The Information, Apple’s deal with Google will expire next year, and Yahoo and Microsoft are both eager to step in as a replacement, which shouldn’t really come as much of a surprise.

    As Bing has basically acknowledged that it can’t win the war against Google from Bing.com, such a deal could be of major help to the search engine. Meanwhile, Yahoo has really been on the upswing with its search business, and no doubt wants to continue that momentum.

    While this could ultimately come down to a bidding war, Apple is also not likely to want to compromise the user experience, so Microsoft and Yahoo will have to prove that they can do search just as well as the king.

    Yahoo, of course, once was the king, but that was long ago. Under former Googler Marissa Mayer, however, the company has been making some significant moves in tech. Becoming the default search for Safari would be huge for the company.

    Apple, which in recent years has increasingly tried to distance itself from dependence on Google, has already partnered with Microsoft to make Bing the default web search on Siri.

    The search engine Apple chooses could have a major impact on the search landscape. It’s hard to say just how big of an impact though, as Google would certainly still be an option and a setting adjustment away.

    Image via Apple

  • Bing Launches Homepage Improvements

    Bing Launches Homepage Improvements

    Microsoft announced that it will now feature high-definition images on its home page, as well as new image captions, customization features and quick access to Office Online.

    The daily homepage image will be wide-screen and HD (1920×1080 pixels).

    “We get a lot of feedback about the homepage image, whether you’re trying to figure out where or what the image is during your coffee break or playing a guessing game with your students or children,” says Bing in a blog post. “That feedback inspired us to redesign how we share information about the homepage, by creating an image caption that works a little like the title cards you might see next to a piece of artwork in a gallery or museum. So now you can move your mouse over the Info button to reveal the new image caption and click to learn more or download the image to use as your desktop wallpaper.”

    “People generally like the carousel of trending topics at the foot of the Bing homepage, but many ask how it could reflect their interests a little more,” Bing adds. “You can [now] customize your experience to follow news, stocks, weather, or even track a flight right from the Bing homepage.”

    You can now also minimize the carousel completely to see the homepage picture better. You can further control the size and motion of the homepage via the gear icon.

    Finally, Bing users will notice an Office Online link at the top of the page, which serves as a drop-down menu for the product’s various apps.

    All of this stuff is available in all markets today. Most will see the updates automatically, but some will have to switch on the HD in the settings.

    Image via Bing

  • Yahoo Takes Major Search Partner Away From Google

    Yahoo may have lost its way in search over the years, but it would appear that CEO Marissa Mayer is determined to bring search back to the forefront. Going to head with her former employer in its specialty may not be an easy feat, but she’s doing everything she can, it would seem, to cement Yahoo’s brand back into search relevance. Keep in mind, Yahoo was the king of search at one point, and a lot of people are frustrated with Google for various reasons (look no further than the comment sections on our Google search articles for proof of that).

    Can Yahoo make a significant comeback in search? Share your thoughts in the comments.

    Yahoo and Mozilla announced a strategic five-year partnership making Yahoo Search the default search engine for Firefox in the United States both on mobile and desktop.

    “This is the most significant long-term partnership for Yahoo in five years,” a spokesperson for the company tells WebProNews. “As part of this, Yahoo will introduce an enhanced search experience, which U.S. Firefox users will receive first in December 2014.”

    This is huge news for both parties as well as for search in general. Google has been the global default search experience in Firefox for the past ten years. While Chrome has emerged in the meantime, Firefox remains a popular browser, and should give Yahoo a significant boost in searches.

    Here’s what the desktop web browser market share looked like last month (via Wikipedia):

    The Mozilla Google deal came up for renewal this year, and Mozilla decided to review its competitive strategy and explore its options.

    “In evaluating our search partnerships, our primary consideration was to ensure our strategy aligned with our values of choice and independence, and positions us to innovate and advance our mission in ways that best serve our users and the Web,” said CEO Chris Beard. “In the end, each of the partnership options available to us had strong, improved economic terms reflecting the significant value that Firefox brings to the ecosystem. But one strategy stood out from the rest.”

    Firefox will on longer have a single global default search provider. Mozilla says it’s adopting a “more local and flexible” approach with different partnerships for different countries. While Yahoo is the U.S. partner, it’s Yandex in Russia and Baidu in China. In all, Firefox will have 61 different search providers pre-installed across 88 different language versions. Google will still be among those options, and it will continue to power Safe Browsing and Geolocation features in Firefox. Google will also remain the default in Europe.

    That could change, however, and given that Mozilla and Yahoo are now buddies, you have to wonder if Yahoo will eventually take the reins there too.

    Mayer said, “We’re thrilled to partner with Mozilla. Mozilla is an inspirational industry leader who puts users first and focuses on building forward-leaning, compelling experiences. We’re so proud that they’ve chosen us as their long-term partner in search, and I can’t wait to see what innovations we build together. Yahoo, we believe deeply in search – it’s an area of investment, opportunity and growth for us. This partnership helps to expand our reach in search and also gives us an opportunity to work closely with Mozilla to find ways to innovate more broadly in search, communications, and digital content.”

    “Our teams worked closely with Mozilla to build a clean, modern, and immersive search experience that will launch first to Firefox’s U.S. users in December and then to all Yahoo users in early 2015. The interactive and integrated experience also better leverages our world-class content and personalization technologies,” she said. “Search inspires us because we think it’s something that will change and improve dramatically, and because fundamentally, search is about human curiosity — and that is something that will never be finished.”

    “Search is a core part of the online experience for everyone, with Firefox users alone searching the Web more than 100 billion times per year globally,” said Beard. “Our new search strategy doubles down on our commitment to make Firefox a browser for everyone, with more choice and opportunity for innovation. We are excited to partner with Yahoo to bring a new, re-imagined Yahoo search experience to Firefox users in the U.S. featuring the best of the Web, and to explore new innovative search and content experiences together.”

    In recent years, Yahoo has become known more for its display advertising business than its search business, but in its most recent earnings report, it actually revealed that it’s doing better in search. The company saw its eleventh quarter of year-over-year search revenue growth with price-per-click up in most regions.

    “We continue to find ways to enhance the performance of our search ads through better user interfaces and higher quality traffic and as advertisers ultimately find our search ads more valuable,” Mayer said at the time.

    She also talked a little about search on the conference call that followed the earnings release. She said, “When we think about what will search look like, on a phone, on a smaller device 10 years from now, we think it looks pretty different then it looks today. We really like the Aviate technology that we acquired we’ve been looking at how can really enrich the experience such that its not a lot of different answers perfectly ranked but actually the one answer you need when you’re on the go, or you’re working in a more constrained display, real constrained screening environment.”

    More on the Aviate acquisition here.

    As you probably know, Yahoo made a deal with Microsoft in the pre-Mayer years, which saw Bing powering Yahoo search, but it’s become increasingly clear that Mayer isn’t a big fan of the deal, and it will likely end eventually. Having a partnership with Mozilla will help it better compete with both Google and Microsoft, which of course uses Bing for its Internet Explorer browser.

    Interestingly enough, it sounds like Bing doesn’t think it will really ever be able to take significant market share away from Google when it comes to core search.

    For what it’s worth, the Yahoo/Bing partnership saw its biggest paid search market share increase in five years in Q3.

    As far as Firefox goes, Mozilla is doing plenty to keep its flagship product relevant, which will only help Yahoo in the United States. It recently announced some major privacy-related initiatives, and that’s something that’s been on a lot of people’s minds, particularly since the whole NSA/PRISM scandal came to light. By the way, under the partnership, Mozilla says Yahoo will support Do Not Track in Firefox.

    Mozilla is also courting developers with a new Developer Edition of Firefox.

    As of this summer, Mozilla is under new leadership as Beard became CEO, though he’s been “deeply involved with every aspect of Mozilla” since 2004.

    Google’s dominance has been helped by partnerships like the ones it has held with Google and Apple over the years, but those are starting to break down. Apple has also been distancing itself from Google reliance in a variety of ways over the past couple years.

    Google is too big at this point to face any major threat, but losing such significant partnerships has to hurt it to some extent. And if you’ll recall, when Google released its latest earnings report, one of the storylines was whether or not Google’s core business is actually in trouble. Some analysts seem to think it might be as growth has slowed. Google has also seen twelve straight quarters of ad price decline.

    In case you haven’t noticed, Yahoo has been making a lot of acquisitions over the past couple years, and has been launching major overhauls to its core products while getting rid of others so it can focus on the ones that really matter. It’s hard to argue that Mayer hasn’t breathed new life into the company since she took over.

    Yahoo doesn’t have to become top dog in search again to have a major impact on the web and businesses. Either way, for the first time in a long time, it would seem that Yahoo has plenty to be excited about when it comes to search.

    Do you use Firefox? Yahoo Search? Do you you think Yahoo is headed in the right direction? Discuss.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Bing: We’re Not Giving Up On Search [Updated]

    Update 2: Asked for additional comment or further clarification on Stefan’s comments, the spokesperson says, “We have nothing further to share.”

    Update: The initial headline to this article was “Bing Abandons Hope Of Competing With Google (In ‘Pure’ Search)”. Bing apparently takes issue with this. A spokesperson says it’s a “misrepresentation of Bing’s position, as well as Stefan Weitz’s statement. Bing is not giving up on search.”

    Well, the headline didn’t exactly say “Bing is Giving Up On Search,” but clearly they’re defensive about it. I’ve reached out to Bing for a more official statement.

    It’s unclear if they were okay with Search Engine Land’s version: “Bing: It’s Unlikely That We’ll Take Search Share Away From Google”. It’s also unclear if the Register’s quotes were inaccurate. So far, I don’t see any updates on either of these articles. Take from that what you will.

    Original article: It’s been a while since we’ve heard much about the “Bing it On” challenge, which was Bing’s attempt to convince people it provided a better search experience than Google, even though the challenge stripped out key features of both search engines. It did little to advance Bing’s market share.

    The holidays are just around the corner, and we haven’t seen any new “Scroogled” campaigns (because it’s a play on Scrooge, not “Screw Google,” remember?) emerge yet. That could still happen. These ads didn’t always focus on search, but stretched into other areas like email and computers.

    It appears that Bing is basically abandoning hope that it will actually take a significant amount of market share away from Google when it comes to pure search. Bing’s Stefan Weitz spoke at the Web Summit this week. The Register (via Search Engine Land) shares some quotes from him:

    “The question is, where is search really going?” he said at the Web Summit conference in Dublin today. “It’s unlikely we’re going to take share in [the pure search] space, but in machine learning, natural language search… and how we can make search more part of living. For us, it’s less about Bing.com, though that’s still important. It’s really about how we can instead weave the tech into things you’re already doing.”
    …

    “For pure keyword search, we’re around 30 per cent in the US, not so much in Europe,” he said. “But search in different areas of life? That mix is to be determined. I’m committed to making sure we have our fair share of search in the future.”

    In terms of advertising, the Yahoo Bing “search alliance” saw its biggest paid search market share increase in five years in Q3, according to research released by IgnitionOne. This followed Yahoo’s search market share hitting its lowest point ever in the summer, though things are looking up for Yahoo on the search front based on the company’s latest earnings report.

    Image via Bing.com (Yes, you can just type in a “W” and get a suggestion to go to www.Google.com).

  • Bing Ads Get Targeting Changes, App Extensions

    Microsoft rolled out tablet-related device targeting changes for Bing Ads last month, putting PC and tablet targeting together across campaigns. Now, device targeting is changing some more.

    Bing is eliminating explicit mobile device targeting.

    Microsoft’s Gyan Trivedi explains, “Advertisers will be able to leverage bid modifiers on Mobile. We will continue having the bid modifier on Tablet as well. Once this change is rolled out, there should be complete compatibility between how ad campaigns are managed in Google AdWords and in Bing Ads.”

    Right now, Bing ads offer a Desktop and Tablet targeting option and a smartphone targeting option. With the changes, it will have one for Desktop, tablet, and smartphones, and one for smartphones.

    The changes should be completed in March.

    The company also introduced new app extensions for its ads, which will let users install advertisers’ mobile apps.

    “App extensions will enable you to promote your app for download on Android, iOS or Windows Phone devices,” says Trivedi. “These extensions will automatically be targeted to a specific user’s OS and device combination. Searchers will be able to discover, download and experience your offerings directly through your mobile app, thus deepening your engagement with them.”

    These are also coming in March.

    Image via Bing

  • Bing Ads Get Universal Event Tracking

    Bing Ads Get Universal Event Tracking

    Microsoft announced the general availability of Universal Event Tracking for Bing Ads to advertisers worldwide. This lets advertisers create and track various performance metrics associated with conversions with one tag.

    A spokesperson for the company tells WebProNews it “lays the groundwork for audience based remarketing scenarios,” which are coming sometime soon.

    “UET simplifies campaign goal tracking by placing a small snippet of code (often referred to as a tracking code or tag) on the pages of a website,” the spokesperson says. “Data is then collected when the web page is loaded and sent to Bing Ads. Bing Ads analyses and aggregates this data to provide insights and determines if/when a goal is met. By enabling the use of only one tag, UET is saving advertisers time and effort while providing enhanced data insights.”

    “UET provides a simple yet powerful way to define and track goals (performance/conversion) that are important for your business,” says Microsoft’s Nishant Gupta in a blog post. “With UET you can associate the success of these goals with your advertising campaigns across accounts, ad campaigns and devices.”

    It lets you see which campaigns are most effective based on goals, which keywords are leading to conversions and lower bounce rates, ROI, which customer segments are converting best, and what type of engagement keywords have.

    Universal Event Tracking replaces the current Campaign Analytics conversion tracking offering in Bing Ads. More here.

    Image via YouTube

  • Report: Yahoo/Bing Sees Biggest Paid Search Market Share Increase In 5 Years

    The search alliance between Yahoo and Bing saw its biggest market share increase against Google in five years in Q3, in terms of paid search in the U.S., according to a new report from IgnitionOne.

    The report says the partnership saw its best showing since Q1 2009 as it increased to 25% compared to Google’s 75%.

    Yahoo/Bing is also getting more expensive, it says, with a 5.8% drop in traffic year-over-year, but a large increase in CPCs.

    Paid search spend for phones surpassed tablet spend, increasing 18.5% over the previous quarter. Phones saw triple digit growth in search metrics including impressions, clicks and spend, it says.

    The report also says third-party network decline caused a ripple effect.

    “Search spend decreases 32% YoY as advertisers pull out of Google partner network,” the firm says. “As impressions drop, CTR continues to climb, largely due to advertisers pulling out of display networks and third party search partner networks which have naturally lower CTRs.”

    “Paid Search continues to evolve and become more integrated with broader digital marketing efforts. Marketers and their technologies have become more sophisticated as they seek to drive the highest return on their advertising spend and marketing efforts.” says IgnitionOne President Roger Barnette. “Marketers and advertisers are getting better at finding users wherever they are on whatever device they are using.”

    You can check out the whole report here.

    Image via IgnitionOne