One of our goals for Bing was to improve the way search results pages are organized. We wanted to help people get away from the “search overload” they often feel– that sinking feeling when confronted by millions of non-descript results.
The Explore Pane is one of the ways we are bringing more order to the page. It allows us to provide a set of helpful tools in a consistent location across the Bing experience that enable you to more easily navigate various categories of results relevant to your query, including web, video, image, news, local, shopping, and more.
We conducted extensive research in planning Bing. One of the things people told us was that search results pages could be organized more effectively. We found that 66% of people are using search more frequently to help them make decisions. However, they are spending much more time on those decision-oriented sessions – averaging around 9 minutes per session. With that insight, we realized improving page organization to help get users to what they are looking for faster could have a big impact.
What’s in the Explore Pane?
The Explore Pane can contain three sets of tools – Quick Tabs, Related Searches and Search History.
For certain queries that are very specific (such as your name or other “tail” queries), Quick Tabs and Related Searches may not appear every time. However for what we call “head” queries which are broader terms that often require refinement in the search process, Quick Tabs and Related Searches are presented to help you more easily navigate the volumes of content that exist on your given search term.
Where can I find it?
The Explore Pane is always present in the left hand pane on the page as a permanent companion while using Bing. We did extensive user testing with early concepts and concluded two things:
i) The feature was sufficiently helpful to present as a permanent feature on the page.
ii) The left hand pane was the best location – being highly accessible from the main set of results, without being too distracting.
How dynamic is it?
The contents of the Explore Pane are highly dynamic. The presence or content of Quick Tabs and Related Searches vary for every different query that you type, while the Search History tool is unique to you as a user.
We believe that the Explore Pane is an important component of a more structured, helpful and well-organized results page. In the near future we’ll follow up with more detailed postings on both the Quick Tabs and Search History features.
Martin Stoddart, Senior Product Manager, Bing
Why is search history not working in Europe ?
And Quicktabs and related searches are not working either.
We just get an empty Explore pane.
What a joke.
I like it. Its much easier to get a variety of results.
@hal - Thanks for the feedback. We're working to expand the availability of these features as quickly as possible and we'll be sure to share updates on expansion when we can.
You've developed a streamlined and gorgeous search engine. Congratuletions! Ann Seymour
@nathan9000 & @ann seymour - thanks for the feedback. We're glad you like the experience as much as we do. :)
I am really liking bing, search for "xbox 360" first page:
Images, tabs for games , repair, reviews and more. related search suggestions beneath those. and in the body hits broken down from those. this makes things much better and more relivent to my initial search with all the options i might or might not need, without having to figure out what it is and where i need to go. bing is a decision engine. Thanks
This is completely unrelated to this post, but I'm curious why I can't find my business when searching for it on Bing. I write a real estate blog at genevalakefrontrealty.com/blog, and though I rank extremely high with google and yahoo, and my content is solid and ever changing, sites with generic templates and three year old information rank higher. What gives? Is there something I need to do to get my information listed on Bing, or to have my blog listed in the directory? Please let me know what I'm doing wrong. Thanks, dave@genevalakefrontrealty.com
@david curry - Thanks for sharing your issue. Our Webmaster site has the tools and resources to help. Visit http://www.bing.com/webmaster/. Let us know if we can be of further assistance.
@hal yes i am also facing same problem this search history not working in India also ? & also Quicktabs and related searches are not working either and i just get an empty Explore pane.
Bing do something for we Indian also as i am very excited about bing and its new feaures, so do something so that this search history also work in India also, as per my knowledge there are lot of users now using bing regularly and one of them Jackin!
@jackin
I stay in India and a big fan of Bing. I don't use the India locale for Bing. I use US locale. That way you get the Explore pane, search history. Even India maps look much different than they look for India locale. It is a drawback I agree with you but for now, that is the workaround.
@Jagannath
Especially search history should not depend on what locale is set. That a simple feature like that, not depending on locale, is lacking is unforgivable.
Also noticable is that Bing produces old very poor search results in Europe.
If I change to locale US, even normal searches in my own languange give improved results with Bing. Using my own locale setting Bing produces results that look like the old Live search result (which were horrible in Europe anyways).
That is just not funny.
Bing look like a rebranded Live search in Europe with the same old poor search engine whilts in the US it look like a full features search product that competes with Google.
In Europe only an idiot would change to Bing (using the normal standard locale setting) and Bing will already be getting a poor reputation amongs europeans which they will not forget lightly.
And why not show enhanced view on (english!!) wikipedia pages in Bing in Europe. That should also be a setting not be dependant on locale
@hal
I am completely with you. I hope they are listening. As I said, even I don't like this kind of a workaround. But, then I am kind of addicted to the background pics that Bing changes every day and stay with Bing unless Google comes up with something different before MS gets out of their locale issues.
I would like some sort of response from the concerned people.
dc
Super organization. That is what makes Bing works. I appreciate the clean layout and the fact there aren't too many paid ads.
Basically none of the new features are availble out of the US version of Bing. And some of the features are in the Canadien version. But not all. Seriously, if they want to take some Market Share off Google, they need the amazingly good features all over the World, not just the US and Canada. =/