Bing Blogs

Bing Blogs

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Search Blog — Dec 2012

Dec

11

20 12

The Bing Social Sidebar Gets a New Look

At Bing, we realize that sometimes the most useful information doesn’t come from ten blue links. By bringing together knowledge from social networks with traditional web results, Bing is the only engine that saves you time allowing you to make decisions with greater confidence based on the input of other people. Today we’re rolling out a new streamlined design for our social sidebar feature making it easier to find people who are relevant to your search based on what they’ve shared, publically blogged or tweeted about. In a glance you can now see friends, experts and enthusiasts from leading networks including Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and Klout have shared. While the sidebar will remain off to the right of search results – allowing you to decide when and how to interact with it – we have made some changes to the design: We have removed the need to hover over a friend or expert to see additional content – now with one glance you can see content front and center clearly marked “social results”. We have left-justified the results so there is less blank space on the page. If you want to dive and see additional social results... Read More At Bing, we realize that sometimes the most useful information doesn’t come from ten blue links. By bringing together knowledge from social networks with traditional web results, Bing is the only engine that saves you time allowing you to make decisions with greater confidence based on the input of other people. Today we’re rolling out a new streamlined design for our social sidebar feature making it easier to find people who are relevant to your search based on what they’ve shared, publically blogged or tweeted about. In a glance you can now see friends, experts and enthusiasts... Read More
Dec

11

20 12

Guest Post: Top 5 Things to do With Kids...

I’ve always liked the holidays but I must confess, I fell truly, deeply in love with the season after becoming a parent. There’s something about experiencing the joy and the newness of it all through the eyes of your children (or grandchildren or nieces and nephews) that just gives it entirely new meaning. Kind of like everything in life, right? Plus, of course, we now have far more peppermint bark in the house. And that is never a bad thing. I’m asked a lot for ideas of things to do with the family from my readers and really, my perspective can be summed up in one idea: Making memories. With that in mind, here are my favorite tips for things to do with the kids this holiday, plenty of them free. Spend time learning about holidays in other cultures . Whether you’re showing your kids how your own holiday is celebrated in another country, or introducing them to a holiday that they may not know about at all, learning is always fun. Kids love ALL kinds of celebrations and it's so magical to think about other children around the world doing other fun things too. In fact, we had fun doing image searches on Bing for holiday cookies around the world... Read More I’ve always liked the holidays but I must confess, I fell truly, deeply in love with the season after becoming a parent. There’s something about experiencing the joy and the newness of it all through the eyes of your children (or grandchildren or nieces and nephews) that just gives it entirely new meaning. Kind of like everything in life, right? Plus, of course, we now have far more peppermint bark in the house. And that is never a bad thing. I’m asked a lot for ideas of things to do with the family from my readers and really, my perspective can be summed up in one idea... Read More
Dec

10

20 12

Find Famous People and Places in a Snap

In May, Bing launched a new three column look, which was designed to fundamentally change how you interact with search to help you do more. One of the key elements of the new search experience is the middle column, which we refer to as snapshot. With snapshot, Bing brings relevant information and services, such as maps and restaurant reviews and reservations, which are directly related to your search within the main results page. And, since our launch, we’ve run thousands of experiments to see which types of tasks most frequently are searched for on Bing, and determined that people and places are among some of the most popular things people do in Bing. Which is why today, we’re excited to announce that Bing is rolling out two new categories in snapshot: people and landmarks. Now when you search for a famous person, celebrity or place, we will present relevant facts about that person in the center part of the screen so you can quickly find what you’re looking for without having to click through to another site or page. We’ve now expanded the snapshot to cover famous people and places as well as made updates to include different sources including reviews... Read More In May, Bing launched a new three column look, which was designed to fundamentally change how you interact with search to help you do more. One of the key elements of the new search experience is the middle column, which we refer to as snapshot. With snapshot, Bing brings relevant information and services, such as maps and restaurant reviews and reservations, which are directly related to your search within the main results page. And, since our launch, we’ve run thousands of experiments to see which types of tasks most frequently are searched for on Bing, and determined that people and places... Read More
Dec

07

20 12

Google’s Curious Defense Continues to Scroogle...

It’s been 10 days since we highlighted to consumers Google Shopping's pay-to-rank practice and challenged them to change their policies. To date, Google’s only response to the concerns highlighted by the Scroogled effort had been to avoid addressing the issue at-hand and praise their shopping service. Finally, according to a report from Politico’s Dec. 6 th edition of Morning Tech , Google responded directly to the issues we raised. What we find curious, however, is what Google said. Instead of owning up to consumers about their pay-to-rank policy, Google delivered a misleading and inaccurate statement. Google told Politico: Google contends that it clearly labels the search results on the shopping service, which comes with a disclaimer that “Google is compensated by some of these merchants.” “Our new paid Google Shopping results are ranked first and foremost by relevance, are clearly labeled as sponsored, and are clearly separated from our unpaid search results,” a Google spokesman said. Here are the facts: First, from Google : “Starting on October 17, Google Shopping results in the US will come only from merchants who are... Read More It’s been 10 days since we highlighted to consumers Google Shopping's pay-to-rank practice and challenged them to change their policies. To date, Google’s only response to the concerns highlighted by the Scroogled effort had been to avoid addressing the issue at-hand and praise their shopping service. Finally, according to a report from Politico’s Dec. 6 th edition of Morning Tech , Google responded directly to the issues we raised. What we find curious, however, is what Google said. Instead of owning up to consumers about their pay-to-rank policy, Google delivered a misleading... Read More
Dec

06

20 12

The Choice is Clear, Don’t Get Scroogled...

Last week we launched the “ Scroogled ” campaign to educate average consumers about what Google has done with their shopping site. Instead of showing you the most relevant shopping search results for the video game you’re looking to buy your kid, Google Shopping now decides what to show you based partially on how much the merchant selling the product has paid them. Merchants can literally pay to improve their chances to display their products higher than others inside of Google’s shopping “search,” even if it’s not less expensive for you. In that spirit, today we are releasing a new holiday themed animated video to help spread the word about what’s going on: The choice is clear, don’t get Scroogled this year! - The Bing Team Read More Last week we launched the “ Scroogled ” campaign to educate average consumers about what Google has done with their shopping site. Instead of showing you the most relevant shopping search results for the video game you’re looking to buy your kid, Google Shopping now decides what to show you based partially on how much the merchant selling the product has paid them. Merchants can literally pay to improve their chances to display their products higher than others inside of Google’s shopping “search,” even if it’s not less expensive for you. In that spirit... Read More
Dec

04

20 12

A Commitment to Trust and Transparency...

Six days ago, we launched the “ Scroogled ” campaign to let you know that, just in time for the holiday rush, Google has made some unprecedented changes to Google Shopping. How did Google respond? They distributed a statement praising their service. They highlighted how great products look on Google Shopping without really explaining how the products get there in the first place. They did not contradict or argue any of the facts and information we laid out. The silence is disappointing given how important this issue is to consumers and the online industry as a whole. In short, Google’s silence is pretty clear acknowledgement of the changes they have made to introduce pay-to-rank to their system. After calling the practice “evil” for years, Google Shopping is now allowing merchants to pay to influence where their products show up in Google Shopping’s rankings. We believed, and surveys confirmed, most consumers were unaware of these changes because the appearance of Google Shopping looks much like other Google search services. And we’ve seen a lot of interest in the topic from people in and outside the industry. As search is the primary... Read More Six days ago, we launched the “ Scroogled ” campaign to let you know that, just in time for the holiday rush, Google has made some unprecedented changes to Google Shopping. How did Google respond? They distributed a statement praising their service. They highlighted how great products look on Google Shopping without really explaining how the products get there in the first place. They did not contradict or argue any of the facts and information we laid out. The silence is disappointing given how important this issue is to consumers and the online industry as a whole. In short... Read More
Dec

03

20 12

Bing It On Holiday Search Challenge: Search...

Starting today, we’re inviting people in the US to take a new holiday-themed Bing it On Challenge for a chance to win a ‘Microsoft Box of Awesome' (Windows Phone 8, Xbox 360 with Kinect, Windows 8 device) or a chance at the grand prize:a $10,000 paid trip to any place in the U.S. Test it out by searching for your favorite holiday activities such as “how to make homemade eggnog” or “ice skating rink” and pick your preferred results. To enter the sweepstakes or learn more, visit the challenge site at www.bingiton.com , Official rules can be found here . Launched earlier in the Fall, the Bing It On Challenge is an online tool that makes it easy for you to compare Bing and Google’s web search results. The challenge is simple – within the tool you search for five search queries of your choice and compare unbranded web search results from Bing and Google side-by-side. For each search result, you choose a winner, or declare it a “draw”. After you complete your five search queries and vote for each one, we show you the final score. You can then share the Bing It On Challenge with others via Facebook, Twitter, or Google... Read More Starting today, we’re inviting people in the US to take a new holiday-themed Bing it On Challenge for a chance to win a ‘Microsoft Box of Awesome' (Windows Phone 8, Xbox 360 with Kinect, Windows 8 device) or a chance at the grand prize:a $10,000 paid trip to any place in the U.S. Test it out by searching for your favorite holiday activities such as “how to make homemade eggnog” or “ice skating rink” and pick your preferred results. To enter the sweepstakes or learn more, visit the challenge site at www.bingiton.com , Official rules can be found here... Read More