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Learnings From SMX London: The Impact Of Social On Search
SEOs and Social Marketers speculate on the impact that Social Media marketing has on how well their websites perform in search results. There has been much conjecture with many people interpreting an array of correlations as causation. Both Google’s Matt Cutts and Bing’s Duane Forrester have come out (on more than one occasion) to emphatically […]
SearchCap: Bing Updates Music Video Search, Bing Ads Mobile Tweaks & Hotel Search On Google Glass
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Bing Now Accepting Entries For Its 2014 Homepage Photo Contest Bing announced on its Facebook page that it is currently accepting entries for its 2014 homepage photo contest. Coinciding with its […]
Bing Now Accepting Entries For Its 2014 Homepage Photo Contest
Bing announced on its Facebook page that it is currently accepting entries for its 2014 homepage photo contest. Coinciding with its 5th birthday, Bing is asking for photo submissions to be uploaded via a link it has posted on Facebook: It’s been 5 years since we launched Bing. To celebrate, we’re looking for amazing images […]
Finding New Music On Bing Just Got Easier
Bing announced today it has updated the way it delivers music video search results. According to the announcement, people search for music videos differently than when they are searching for other types of videos: When we examined search session data, we realized that when people search for music videos they tend to explore rather than […]
Bing Ads Tweaks Its Tune: Desktop/Tablet Traffic To Be Combined, Adding Tablet Bid Modifier
You may recall last spring, Bing Ads issued a manifesto of sorts in response to Google’s announcement of Enhanced Campaigns titled Advertisers Deserve Control: “We do not believe bundling mobile, desktop and tablet advertising together in an opaque manner is in the best interests of our customers.” In what would appear to be an about-face, Bing […]
18 Lessons Learned In Leveraging Event Marketing For B2B SEO
Here’s a painful truth: for B2B marketing success in fast-growth environments, inbound marketing only plays a small role in the process. Outbound marketing efforts, like event marketing, often play a much more significant role. In fact, according to a study released last year covered by InsideSales.com, event marketing was the second most effective B2B marketing […]
SearchCap: Bing’s 5th Birthday, Connect Google+ Pages & China’s Censorship
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: New: Connect Your Google+ Business Page To Your Google Maps Listing Google has now enabled those with Google+ business pages to connect their page to their local business listing on Google […]
Bing Celebrates Its 5th Birthday With A Walk Down Memory Lane & Extra Search Reward Credits
To celebrate its 5th birthday today, Bing has posted a retrospective of the last five years and is offering Bing Reward credit perks for any users who search on the site between now and June 9. Going all the way back to 2009, Microsoft’s search engine outlined its initial goals of leveraging semantic search. Bing […]
At Five Years Old, Bing Has Come Far Yet Has More To Grow
Microsoft’s Bing search engine has turned five this week. There are good reasons for some birthday celebrations at Microsoft. The company has created a solid competitor to Google, grown its market share and created a search platform for other Microsoft products. But when it comes to mindshare, Bing is still far behind rivaling Google as […]
Apple Drops Google For Bing As “Spotlight” Search Provider In iOS 8 & Mac OS X “Yosemite”
Bing has gained another win with Apple, becoming integrated into a new version of Spotlight in Apple’s forthcoming Mac OS X “Yosemite” operating system and in the coming iOS 8 mobile operating system. Spotlight will also tap into a wide-range of search resources similar to how Siri works on iOS. During Apple’s WWDC keynote today, […]
SearchCap: Google Right To Be Forgotten Form, Yahoo Search Bar & App Indexing Languages
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: How Google’s New “Right To Be Forgotten” Form Works: An Explainer Google has taken a big step forward in complying with the European Union’s new “Right To Be Forgotten” that was […]
Put Big Data To Work To Build Better Search Ads
Not too long ago, if I said “big data” to someone, I got a blank look in return. Now, big data is the topic du jour. People in healthcare, politics, industry… all are talking about it and how big data is changing the world. Simply put, the concept of big data reflects our growing ability […]
Microsoft Translation In Real-Time Over Skype
Last night at the Re/Code Conference, Microsoft demoed real-time translation over Skype. Imagine talking to someone over a video call, they spoke a completely different language than you did, but the technology did real time translation as you spoke. Microsoft has a beta they demonstrated last night at the conference. Gurdeep Pall, Corporate Vice President […]
Bing To Shut Down Webmaster Forums
Bing is shutting down their Bing Webmaster Forums by the end of this month or early June. Duane Forrester of Bing said that the forums were turning into the place Bing expected and they have decided to shut it down to give them the “time and resources to focus energies in other directions.” So what […]
Bing Maps Makes It Easier To See Map Features & Distinguish Park Trails From Streets
Last Friday, Bing Maps announced new stylistic updates, designed to make its maps easier to read. Among the new style features, Bing has added more color gradient, adjusting the brightness of a land area depending on the zoom level. From the announcement: The land color will now be lighter when zoomed out and get darker […]
Microsoft Offers Skype Promotion For Making Bing Your Default Search Engine
WinBeta reports that Microsoft is offering a promotion to Brazilian searchers to make Bing their default search engine and in exchange, they will get $2 of Skype credit to be applied to your Skype account. When you go to Bing Brazil (clicking this will set your Bing home page to the Brazilian version), the offer […]
Bing Webmaster Roadshow 2014 Takes Search Experts On 4-City Tour This Summer
Bing announced today it will be hosting the Bing Webmaster Roadshow 2014 starting next month, with stops in four cities including Chicago, Atlanta, Boston and Houston. In partnership with Inc. Magazine, the events will include panel discussions with Message Medium’s Maisha Walker, Bruce Clay of Bruce Clay Inc., aimClear founder Marty Weintraub, along with Bing […]
New Bing Ads Location Report Shows Whether Ads Were Triggered By Physical Location Or Location Interest
The Bing Ads team has added a new Geo Location report that offers more detail on the type of targeting methods used in serving your ads. The report is available under the list of Targeting reports via the Bing Ads API and the web UI. Aptly named, the “Geo location (New version)” report includes two […]
Bing Ads Editor To Get Several New Targeting Enhancements
Bing Ads is currently piloting several new features for Bing Ads Editor that are planned to roll out in the coming weeks. Here’s a preview of three of the new features. Bulk Location Targeting A new “Targeting” tab will be the hub for users to add location targets and exclusions in bulk. An auto-complete feature […]
Bing Expands Snapshot With New Food & Drug Entities
Bing is getting smarter today with the addition of food- and drug-related entities to its library of facts. The new at-a-glance information for these searches will appear in the Snapshot area on the right side of Bing’s search results. In some cases, like the hamburger search shown below, the Snapshot includes a dropdown to further […]
7 Conversion Rate Truths That Will Change Your Landing Page Strategy
Much of what marketers have learned about landing page conversion is wrong. Worse, the optimizations promoted across industry blogs, courses and at conferences as game changers are really just best practices every marketer should have implemented already. Tweaking headline and body copy, adjusting line spacing, repositioning buttons, playing with fonts and colors – all of […]
Bing: Adding Markup & Schema Is “Worth” It For Search Engines
Duane Forrester from Bing posted a new article on the Bing Search Blog named Mark It Up. In the article, Duane explained the upmost importance of marking up your content with schema and meta data. Duane said “it’s worth completing this work to help the engines understand your content more clearly.” Why? Duane explained that […]
Bing Ads Launches Live Chat Support And Industry Insights Portal With Research, Case Studies
Today, the Bing Ads team announced the launch of live chat support and a new industry insights portal. Live Chat will be available at all hours every day of the week for in its English-language markets. Customers can use Live Chat to ask questions about campaign set up, optimization tactics, billing issues and more. The […]
SearchCap: Google’s Matt Cutts Regrets, Bing On Firefox OS & Google Doodles
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Google’s Matt Cutts Regrets Not Acting Faster On Paid Links & Content Farms In Google’s Matt Cutts latest video, he answers a question I personally asked about what he regrets, what […]
Bing Launches On Firefox OS, Does It Matter?
Bing has launched an app for the Firefox Marketplace. As pointed out by The Next Web, Google doesn’t yet have an official app there. Firefox OS is a mobile operating system “built entirely using open web standards” (HTML5). It’s both an effort to reinvigorate the mobile web and keep Firefox from falling into total mobile irrelevance. […]
Bing On Links: You Should Never Know In Advance Where A Link Is Coming From
Duane Forrester from Microsoft’s Bing team wrote a blog post today on the official Bing Search blog named 10 SEO myths reviewed. There are many good and obvious points Duane makes in the post but one point he makes about links is very revealing. Duane wrote: You should never know in advance a link is […]
Quantifying Brand Bias In Search Results With Rand Fishkin Of Moz
Like many, I enjoyed Rand Fishkin‘s keynote, The SEO Revolution Will Not Be Televised, at SMX West this past March. Rand is a dynamic speaker and a smart marketer; and in my estimation, he deserves most of the attention he gets. That being said, I was taken aback by his claim during the presentation that “the long-awaited dominance […]
Bing Now Searches Music That You Can Listen & Play On Xbox Music
PC World reports that Microsoft Bing has added a way to search for music available within Xbox Music. Now, if you search for a song, for example [U2 all that you can’t leave behind] on Bing, on the right hand panel, you will see a box for “Listen to music.” There, you will be able […]
Bing Ends Sponsorship Deal With WNBA’s Seattle Storm
After a four-year sponsorship deal with the WNBA’s Seattle Storm, the Seattle Times reported yesterday that Bing will no longer be the marquee sponsor for the team co-owned by Microsoft executive Lisa Brummel. The report claimed the deal had been valued at $1 million per year, giving the Bing premium marketing space at Seattle Storm’s Key […]
SearchCap: Selling Bing, AdWords Scripts & Scaling Link Building
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Sell Bing? Makes No Sense, Says Microsoft’s Bill Gates — It’s A “Core Business” Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates was interviewed on Fox Business News yesterday. Among other things, he was asked […]
Sell Bing? Makes No Sense, Says Microsoft’s Bill Gates — It’s A “Core Business”
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates was interviewed on Fox Business News yesterday. Among other things, he was asked about investor and analyst suggestions that Xbox and Bing be spun out or sold. Gates deferred to newly minted CEO Satya Nadella but said that he would support an Xbox spin-off if that was the decision. He was more […]
Scaling & Systematizing Your Link Building
I’m all about systems and processes. That’s the only way to scale. You could be the best link builder in the world, but how are you going to scale that? Until you remove the bottleneck — namely yourself — from the system, you can’t achieve true scale. (At least until human cloning becomes a reality.) […]
Bing Tests Search Results Without Underlining Hyperlinks
Rubén Gómez reports that Microsoft is testing removing the underlines on the hyperlinks within the search results in Bing. The Bing search results still have the blue hyperlink look, but the underline was removed in this Bing test. Bing is constantly testing large and small changes like this to see how searchers interact with the […]
Spider-Man Switches From Bing To Google
Spoiler alert: ComicBook.com reported this weekend everyone’s favorite spider-bitten superhero has switched from searching on Bing to being a full-fledged Google user. According to the report, Spider-man alias Peter Parker used Bing in the 2012 The Amazing Spider-Man film, much to the disbelief of many hardcore comic book fans: In a world where somebody bitten […]
SearchCap: Bing Updates Android App, NameCheap’s New Domain Search & More
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Bing Updates Its Android App With A New Look & Faster Performance Bing has rolled out a new look and feel for its Android app, claiming the updates make it more […]
Bing Updates Its Android App With A New Look & Faster Performance
Bing has rolled out a new look and feel for its Android app, claiming the updates make it more streamlined and “optimized for performance.” According to the announcement on Bing’s search blog, the app is faster than its previous version, and now lets users track their Bing reward points natively within the app. Bing reminded […]
SearchCap: Google Parking, Bing Ads Grows, Foursquare Swarm App & Yelp Results
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Not Just Parking: Google Now With Offline Cards, Indoor Maps, Shopping Reminders Earlier today Barry Schwartz wrote that the updated Google Search App for Android will now help you locate your […]
Bing Ads Gets Friendlier To Big Accounts: Now See Up To 50,000 Keywords In Web UI
Managing big accounts in the Bing Ads web UI has long had its challenges. The team is starting to change that. Now, at the account, campaign and ad group level, paid search managers can now see performance data on as many as 50,000 keywords in the web interface of Bing Ads. The results used to […]
Bing: New York Sleeps Late; SF Gets Up The Earliest
Microsoft Bing posted data on the earliest risers by city based on Bing usage data. Bing said they “thought it would be interesting to look at Bing usage as a proxy for when people get online, start work or otherwise wake up.” The earliest city to rise is San Francisco, reaching 50% of Bing traffic […]
“Bing For Schools” Becomes “Bing In The Classroom” & Makes Program Available To All Schools
Originally launched in August of last year as Bing for Schools, the new Bing in the Classroom program has moved out of its pilot phase and is now available to all US schools, grades K through 12. For participating schools, the free program offers ad-free and safe searches, daily lesson plans, as well as opportunities […]