Bing Blogs

Bing Blogs

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into the news, trends, people and technology behind Bing.

Webmaster Blog

May

16

20 13

6 Hours of SEO, Social, Crawling and Authority...

We’ve had thousands of people view these webinars, but if you haven’t seen them yet, here they are again. During the fall and winter, we put together a series of 6 webinars. Each is about an hour long, and captures the webinar presentation, as well as the live Q&A we did during each session. Each webinar was free and open to anyone to join, which is a format we’ll obviously keep in the future. If there are topics you’d like covered in future webinars, let me know and we’ll see what can be done to get them produced. Drop your ideas in the comments below . We covered a wide range of topics in over 6 hours of programming: SEO 101 Started here with an overview of what to focus on, what to invest and why it matters. For most folks, its standard stuff, but for those new to the space, it’s a useful review. Crawling Basics In this session we talked more in depth about how we crawl, why we crawl and what we’re looking for. We gave tips on creating a site that search engines want to crawl, too. Bing Webmaster Tools Overview This webinar was designed to help folks learn more about the tools, how to use them and uncover useful... Read More We’ve had thousands of people view these webinars, but if you haven’t seen them yet, here they are again. During the fall and winter, we put together a series of 6 webinars. Each is about an hour long, and captures the webinar presentation, as well as the live Q&A we did during each session. Each webinar was free and open to anyone to join, which is a format we’ll obviously keep in the future. If there are topics you’d like covered in future webinars, let me know and we’ll see what can be done to get them produced. Drop your ideas in the comments below . ... Read More
May

08

20 13

The Power of Bing Ads Infographic

The Bing Ads team has been hard at work. From launching Sitelinks that allows deeper engagement, more messaging, and improve CTR to the continued global expansion , the Bing Ads team is certainly riding the momentum to deliver a new improvements and functionality. To show some of the recent progress, the team created this nifty infographic on the Power of Bing Ads. If you’re not a Bing Ads customer, you can sign up here . If you've got a microscope handy, enjoy the info right here. Otherwise, click the image to see the full size version. Read More The Bing Ads team has been hard at work. From launching Sitelinks that allows deeper engagement, more messaging, and improve CTR to the continued global expansion , the Bing Ads team is certainly riding the momentum to deliver a new improvements and functionality. To show some of the recent progress, the team created this nifty infographic on the Power of Bing Ads. If you’re not a Bing Ads customer, you can sign up here . If you've got a microscope handy, enjoy the info right here. Otherwise, click the image to see the full size version. Read More
May

03

20 13

Query v. Session: Expanding Your Keyword...

If you’re into search engine optimization at any level, you know that keyword research is the beginning of the journey. It’s your best bet to understanding what people are searching for and what content should be most popular on your site. And, we’re all used to using the standard tools to perform the research. Enter a keyword, related keywords are returned along with the query volumes over a selected date range. To be fair, one engine’s tools limits this to the past 30 days or so, while one engine lets you see organic data with a selectable date range of up to 6 months . Differences aside, the work you’re doing remains the same: looking for query volume data. Query v. Session Maybe it’s time to start a new practice in your keyword research process. Try linking like-queries together over time to gain a sense of what the searcher is trying to accomplish. One query (and the data behind it) while providing pinpoint accuracy, may not tell the entire story. Developing a view of that searcher’s session, however, can be very revealing. Here’s an example of the query v. session approach: Query: dog Session: Monday: dog... Read More If you’re into search engine optimization at any level, you know that keyword research is the beginning of the journey. It’s your best bet to understanding what people are searching for and what content should be most popular on your site. And, we’re all used to using the standard tools to perform the research. Enter a keyword, related keywords are returned along with the query volumes over a selected date range. To be fair, one engine’s tools limits this to the past 30 days or so, while one engine lets you see organic data with a selectable date range of up to 6 months... Read More
Apr

26

20 13

Announcing Malware Re-Evaluation and Geo...

Today, we are releasing two new features in Bing Webmaster Tools . The first feature — the new Malware tool — helps you understand whether or not you site contains malware and also allows you to submit and track a “Malware Re-Evaluation” request. You can find the new Malware tool in the Reports & Data section. The second feature — Geo-Targeting — helps you provide Bing with information about the audience you are targeting with your site or a section of your site. You can find the Geo-Targeting feature under the Configure my Site section. Let’s look at both these features a bit more closely. A New Malware Re-Evaluation Workflow Every day, thousands and thousands of sites on the web — many of them owned by webmasters like yourself — are unknowingly infected by malware. Often, this happens because of some vulnerability that allowed a malware distributor or hacker to take control of the site. As a result, the security of unsuspecting visitors is at risk, too. Therefore, to protect our Bing users, we scan the web to look for web pages that have been infected. If Bing detects that a site is willingly or unwillingly serving malware... Read More Today, we are releasing two new features in Bing Webmaster Tools . The first feature — the new Malware tool — helps you understand whether or not you site contains malware and also allows you to submit and track a “Malware Re-Evaluation” request. You can find the new Malware tool in the Reports & Data section. The second feature — Geo-Targeting — helps you provide Bing with information about the audience you are targeting with your site or a section of your site. You can find the Geo-Targeting feature under the Configure my Site section. Let’s look... Read More
Apr

25

20 13

Bing Business Portal is Now Bing Places...

Your customers are online – are you? We know time is in short supply when you are busy running your business. That’s why at Bing we are always looking for ways to simplify your experience of getting your business online and managing your business reputation on the web. The launch of Bing Places for business is the first of many steps in our effort to provide you with all the tools you need to easily and quickly find local customers online. Whether you are new to Bing Places for Business or if you had already claimed your listing on BBP, please review the scenarios below for applicability to your business. 1.) If you’re new to Bing Places for Business, e.g. your business was never claimed, go and claim your listing now . 2.) If you already have a business listing verified, rest assured that your data will be migrated from Bing Business Portal to the new web experience under Bing Places for Business over the next 3-4 days. a. Note: where you used to have to email in a spreadsheet for bulk uploads, you will now be able to perform that upload through the web interface. 3.) If you had a listing under Bing Business Portal, but never completed the verification... Read More Your customers are online – are you? We know time is in short supply when you are busy running your business. That’s why at Bing we are always looking for ways to simplify your experience of getting your business online and managing your business reputation on the web. The launch of Bing Places for business is the first of many steps in our effort to provide you with all the tools you need to easily and quickly find local customers online. Whether you are new to Bing Places for Business or if you had already claimed your listing on BBP, please review the scenarios below for... Read More
Apr

19

20 13

SEOs With Their Heads in the Sand?

Over the last 3 months I’ve spoken at 9 conferences and done 5 live webinars. And a trend has emerged, unfortunately. This trend is split between companies and consultants, though from along the singular line of SEO work. To illustrate, I’ll paraphrase a recent Twitter exchange. No names, to protect the innocent, and if they read this, ferme la bouche… ;) Tweeter : Duane, we have a lot of problems with scrapers. If we write a message for them to stop in the meta keywords tags, will we get penalized? Duane : Huh…? Wha…? Por que? I mean, WTH…? Tweeter : We think we can get them to stop scraping if we post a message there to them. Duane : Well, it’s unlikely you’ll get penalized, but if the message is way off topic, the algo might look at you funny, wondering why you’re tag is so oddball. I wouldn’t do this. Tweeter : Understood, though we’d like to try this. Duane : Why the heck would you waste your time with this? It’s not going to stop the scraping, and “could” lead to other issues. There are other ways to actually block scrapers. Tweeter : We agree, but this client is thinking they... Read More Over the last 3 months I’ve spoken at 9 conferences and done 5 live webinars. And a trend has emerged, unfortunately. This trend is split between companies and consultants, though from along the singular line of SEO work. To illustrate, I’ll paraphrase a recent Twitter exchange. No names, to protect the innocent, and if they read this, ferme la bouche… ;) Tweeter : Duane, we have a lot of problems with scrapers. If we write a message for them to stop in the meta keywords tags, will we get penalized? Duane : Huh…? Wha…? Por que? I mean, WTH…? Tweeter... Read More
Apr

10

20 13

Common Questions for Bing from Businesses

Let’s take a look at some common questions we see frequently whenever we meet with businesses at conferences and events. These four questions pop up in most of the interactions we have, and also in hallway conversations. The questions might seem simple enough, but as usual, the answers are a bit more detailed. I want to do search engine optimization (SEO) for my site because it’s free. Where do I start? a. First and foremost, it’s important to remember that SEO is not free. While you may be able to perform the work yourself and not pay someone, your time is valuable, so it’s important to know when you should just outsource the work and keep your time invested in other areas of the project or site. b. Finding a good consultant can be hard and expensive. It takes time to learn SEO and the skills are in demand, so be sure to vet anyone you’re considering hiring. Set up and interview, ask for references, look at past work they’ve done, ask past clients if they’d hire the consultant again. This will take time, but could save you a lot of money in the long run. c. At the very least, you should learn enough about SEO to talk to a consultant... Read More Let’s take a look at some common questions we see frequently whenever we meet with businesses at conferences and events. These four questions pop up in most of the interactions we have, and also in hallway conversations. The questions might seem simple enough, but as usual, the answers are a bit more detailed. I want to do search engine optimization (SEO) for my site because it’s free. Where do I start? a. First and foremost, it’s important to remember that SEO is not free. While you may be able to perform the work yourself and not pay someone, your time is valuable, so... Read More
Apr

01

20 13

The SEO Tag: Empowering Webmasters To Rank...

Since search engine optimization first became a viable marketing tactic, SEOs have sought to decipher the algorithms used by search engines in an effort to place their content higher in the rankings. In the vast majority of cases, this was done to ensure two things: 1 – good content ranked well 2 – the business producing the good content received traffic Along the way, some SEOs abused the systems to try to game the results. Back and forth for years, the engines and so-called “black hat” SEOs have waged a behind-the-scenes battle to position content on the Search Results pages. It’s pretty easy for the engine to win this battle in the long run, though, as we own the pages. As time has progressed, we’ve been able to tackle spamming issues at many levels. In most cases today, most websites follow the known best practices and simply do the right thing. They’re too busy running a business to try trickery to rank better, trusting we will sort the rankings properly. And now it’s time to reward that trust and your hard work. Bing today is announcing the creation and support of the SEO tag . The goal behind this tag is two... Read More Since search engine optimization first became a viable marketing tactic, SEOs have sought to decipher the algorithms used by search engines in an effort to place their content higher in the rankings. In the vast majority of cases, this was done to ensure two things: 1 – good content ranked well 2 – the business producing the good content received traffic Along the way, some SEOs abused the systems to try to game the results. Back and forth for years, the engines and so-called “black hat” SEOs have waged a behind-the-scenes battle to position content on the Search... Read More
Mar

28

20 13

Does SEO Still Have a Role to Play?

With social such a factor for businesses today, it’s easy to overlook the tried and true in search of the new and shiny. At the last two conferences I’ve attended, it’s a theme that’s surfacing: if we’ve got social, and it drives business, do we need to invest in SEO? For those reading this blog, and in the industry, the answer might seem obvious, but let’s examine this a bit. Social has the ability to take a website form launch to IPO at warp speed. The ability to activate customers to become advocates and spread the good word about your business has never been greater. And businesses should be using social to do the heavy lifting of engaging with customers and driving awareness and positive growth. Using social to accomplish growth is not a simple, straight line option, but its proven to work and when you figure out what resonates with your customers, it’s like uncovering the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. So many sites, apps and businesses rely on social alone, as I’ve learned working with startups for the past year plus. Many of those businesses think of marketing their product in terms of social only. Their sole focus... Read More With social such a factor for businesses today, it’s easy to overlook the tried and true in search of the new and shiny. At the last two conferences I’ve attended, it’s a theme that’s surfacing: if we’ve got social, and it drives business, do we need to invest in SEO? For those reading this blog, and in the industry, the answer might seem obvious, but let’s examine this a bit. Social has the ability to take a website form launch to IPO at warp speed. The ability to activate customers to become advocates and spread the good word about your business has never... Read More
Mar

21

20 13

Search Engine Optimization Best Practices...

As a member of the Bing Index team I am often asked by web publishers and Content Management Systems (CMS) companies to provide coding best practices for their web sites. Today, I am pleased to share a fundamental improvement to our previous coding best practices related to AJAX. AJAX URLs In the past few years, AJAX (shorthand for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) has become extremely popular with web developers looking to create more dynamic and responsive experiences by exchanging small amounts of data with the web server. Often AJAX is used as a technique for creating interactive web applications, but more than ever people are using AJAX to spice up all their site: what was once limited to some areas of only a handful of websites has grown to become the standard for many web sites and Content Management Systems. Exchanging data asynchronously requires the execution of scripts when particular page events occur. Search engines face challenges when it comes to interpreting or executing this kind of code. Therefore, content contained within an AJAX-enabled page or control was often not accessible nor indexed except if you were following SEO best practices overly-complicated... Read More As a member of the Bing Index team I am often asked by web publishers and Content Management Systems (CMS) companies to provide coding best practices for their web sites. Today, I am pleased to share a fundamental improvement to our previous coding best practices related to AJAX. AJAX URLs In the past few years, AJAX (shorthand for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) has become extremely popular with web developers looking to create more dynamic and responsive experiences by exchanging small amounts of data with the web server. Often AJAX is used as a technique for creating interactive web applications... Read More