Bing Updates Hover Preview

Posted: December 6, 2009 4:38 PM | Posted By : ICND Team
Related Categories: SEO,Bing,

Bing released an enhanced page preview feature during November with a different interface and more focus on structured previews. For example a search for Carbon Credits is shown below, when you hover your mouse pointer over the search result an arrow pointing to the right in a gray box shows up, moving your mouse pointer over the arrow itself pops open a layer with a preview of text on the page.

In some situations, like the result from Wikipedia above, a site search box is also shown. We've observed many different variations in what the Bing preview will display. They all typically show some text content, but may also feature a list of popular and/or deep links on the site, site contact information, they may even show pictures if it's a Facebook page.

Some of this information can be useful to know, for example popular links show what Bing/MSN have tracked to be popular pages users view after landing on the page. We have to assume they are getting that data from the MSN toolbar - and this does give you some insight as to what's getting clicked on for yours, or a competitor's site.

Not every site owner will like this feature, If you don't want your content available by the Document Preview feature, you can opt-out using the meta robots tag. To specifically block only Bing from using a preview feature add the following tag to your pages head area.

<meta name="msnbot", content="nopreview">

Or, if you wish to block all engines that support the nopreview tag, use this generic version;

<meta name="robots" content="nopreview">

For more information on Google updates, please see our friends at SearchEngineNews.com.

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MicroHoo, Google not so Boo Hoo, But Twitter...Who Knew?

Posted: July 30, 2009 10:14 AM | Posted By : ICND Team
Related Categories: Yahoo,Google,,Search Engines,Internet Marketing,Bing,

Oh my. A lot has been going on in the Search Market. There hasn't been this much buzz since Google went in cahoots with China on censorship and Ashton Kutcher saved someone from a not so glamorous suicide. Wow.

So Microsoft and Yahoo, the number 3 and number 2 companies in the Search Market respectively (and respectively WAY behind Google) have inked a 10 year deal to combine their efforts. Combine ad platforms mostly...letting Bing (Microsoft's used-to-be MSN used-to-be LIVE) handle that. But it's that what it's all about.

From what I see from the individual SERP's, I personally think Bing is way ahead of Yahoo in its clearer quality guidelines and sensible indexing. Yahoo has been all over the place for the past year. Especially in it's PPC results. So, it just makes sense that these two giants combine.

But Google doesn't seem to frightened by the prospect, though certainly there will be a round of anitrust suits to follow the deal. And why not? Google gets in trouble for every company it acquires...and it should. Why should Google, Microsoft, and NewsCorp own EVERYTHING (directly or indirectly)?

Which brings us to Twitter. Though Twitter burns through cash faster than American auto-makers, it's still just a pebble in Google's shoe...but the prospect of real time search results, getting indexing on a real time basis - what's hot NOW because of behavior, NOT because of a long list of code and content protocols - is interesting. Interesting enough to be a game changer. Or so they say.

Check out this article on the top contenders in real time search, and the problems each one faces in immediacy, popularity, and relevancy.

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Microsoft Rolls out NEW Search Engine - BING

Posted: June 3, 2009 8:28 AM | Posted By : ICND Team
Related Categories: Search Engines,SEO,Bing,

Bing is Microsoft's new upgrade of its search engine LIVE search. Infact, LIVE is now Bing. Live.com is redireded to the new search engine. So what's new? Bing promises to make search easier by allowing a searcher to drill down through the search results until they find exactly what they want. Searchers looking to shop for something (say a digital camera) or book a flight or hotel can get directions, price ranges, specials, and even categories of different types of travel (cheap, luxury, oceanfront, etc).

So the big difference? Most other Search Engines want to give you the best results for your search the first time (whether they really are or not is debateable) and then pass you along to that website. Bing is different. It wants you to keep plugging around until you find exactly what you want (you do your research and reviews within the results page so to speak).

From an SEO standpoint, this means top rankings aren't as weighted as significantly in Bing as in a traditional search engine's results page (though it shouldn't be outright ignored). Why? Because your top ranked page, say for the term "Myrtle Beach hotel" is competing with "clarification" content. Bing says, ok - here are some hotels - but which kind of hotel do you want? Did you really want a condo? Did you really mean North Myrtle Beach?

For Bing rankings I imaginee (if their premise works) that terms will be more long tailed, traffic more qualified so much less quantity (amount of traffic), and the conversions should be higher.

I'm not exactly sure how their PAID ADS measure into all this "drilling down" of content? Or how your analytics would actually track which keyword phrase the visitor came to your site from. If I started with searching for "Myrtle Beach hotels" and ended up drilling down to "cheap Myrtle Beach hotel on the oceanfront" which keyword is actually tagged for drawing the traffic to your website? And better yet - which phrase should you optimize for?

For all you webmaster concerned with the new quality guidelines of Bing.com (not so far off from Live.com's quality guidelines), please read Microsoft Bing Quality Guidelines.

Microsoft is a big player, so it's never a good idea to figure them out of your SEO equation (even though their search market share is nominal compared to Google and Yahoo). If you need a current assessment of your website and how it measures up in the search engines, contact InterCoastal Net Designs today, a North Carolina SEO company.

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