Over the past 48 hours, the Internet world has been abuzz over Microsoft’s recent announcement that it was evolving the way search was happening. As a result, Live Search is no longer a player in the game. Enter Bing – the “decision engine”. Set to be formally unveiled on June 1, I have been privvy to a private screening by the folks at Microsoft courtesy of SHIFT Communications and based on what I’m seeing thus far, I’m thinking it’ll create a whole new environment on which search is based. But no…I do not think it will be the proverbial “Google killer”. It just opens a new way of thinking about how search is done.
During the webcast with the head of Microsoft’s search team, Stefan Weitz, he basically laid out the case for Bing. Apparently what search engines are dealing with is a lot of noise. People are searching for information and look for search engines to provide them an aggregate list of websites and resources. However, the tough part is separating all those links on the page – which ones are the good links and which are the bad ones? In the case with Bing, the goal is to propose more good links and help eliminate dead links. So if you’re looking for information on the cause of diabetes, for example, Bing would give you links for Mayo Clinic or the CDC or other more relevant websites rather than a pharmacy website that could be considered a “fly by night”. How is this done without doing a profile on you? Through Microsoft’s algorithms, it seems.
Microsoft has done some research into what they’ve created with their search engine and in order to make something that will stand out and become one of the leading search engines and position themselves as understanding the semantic web, this is what they’ve uncovered:
- Users are dissatisfied: Search results for 50 percent of the queries fail to meet the consumer’s needs (they are either abandoned or refined), and 35 percent of people express dissatisfaction with search today — and this percentage increases when they move into task-focused activities (such as getting local information or finding a product).
- Users want help searching: 72 percent of people surveyed said current search results are too disorganized, nearly half of all search queries are a repeat of a previous search, and half the searches are eventually refined.
- Users are focused more on tasks and decisions: 66 percent of people reported using search engines to make decisions, and long sessions are becoming more common, with more than 46 percent of searchers’ time being spent on sessions more than 30 minutes in length.
These startling statistics has led Microsoft to look at how to make search engines help form decisions for the users. And it seems that they have done just that, but unfortunately for businesses who wish to advertise on this new robust search engine, they’ll need to make their content and information that much more relevant. So brush up on your search engine optimization skills because you’re going to need it!
Based on my conversation with the Microsoft team earlier today, here are some additional tidbits on Bing:
From the standpoint of the end user, you’re allowed to do whatever search queries you want to do but also that you’re able to focus on three other vertical markets: local, travel and shopping. When you query something, keep in mind that you’re no longer subject to everything relating to that query being thrust at you in the very beginning. You can filter our the criteria. So if there are alternative forms of the search query, Microsoft Bing will provide that for you. If you’re looking for electronics to purchase, you’re able to get a shopping price list so you’ll know where the cheapest place is along with any reviews scoured across multiple websites – the same goes for restaurants if you care to dine out. The most interesting thing is that if you wish to travel, you’re going to encounter an interface very similiar to Kayak.com, but you’re still on the Bing website. You simply enter in your travel criteria and you’ll get a list of websites that show the lowest prices (Microsoft doesn’t get any money from any sale or ticket purchased, from what I’m told). However, what separates Kayak.com from Bing’s Travel option is the incorporation of Farecast, which Microsoft purchased recently that gives travel fare trends so you’ll know over the course of 7 days the odds of whether the fare will increase or decrease if you don’t buy right now.
A new feature that I think may have some use is their new “Save & Share” search feature. You can look back from a historical perspective at all of the search queries you’ve selected AND also the links that you’ve clicked and save them for others to look at or even share them with others by posting to Windows Live, emailing it, or using Facebook Connect to post to your Facebook page. But where’s Twitter or FriendFeed in the mix? There’s currently no plan right now to integrate them. Why? Perhaps because Microsoft doesn’t own a stake in any of those companies? I don’t know the answer, but it should be a good point to have them added to help spread the word.
So what does this do for businesses who think it’s another website? Well first of all it will possibly screw with your search engine strategy a bit, but most likely for the better. Yes, you can go through the motions and try and optimize your website, but this will also help people perfect their search engine marketing skills. Moreover, with Microsoft’s attempt at making this a relevant search for users, chances are that you’ll find that those engaging in covert SEO black hat ops will be found out through the search algorithms and therefore not appear high in the rankings since Microsoft does it through relevancy. Sure, you may still encounter them as you filter your search but the probabilities of having dead links will be low.
As for text advertising like you would see on Google or Yahoo, they still remain. Here’s something interesting though. If you are advertising a travel product, there may be a chance that you’ll have the benefit of appearing in the travel portion of Bing where people look for travel arrangements AND also if they conducted a regular travel search query. So two for the price of one, perhaps? Who knows…but rest assured that your ads will be seen. You just need to make sure that your content on that text ad and website is also relevant so work on that copy and spruce up that website!
If there’s one thing to say about Bing, it’s relevancy. Everything is ordered in a way that is easily accessible in this search engine “portal”. If you conduct the same search in Yahoo, Google, and Bing, you’ll see how things are organized. With Google, news relating to said subject would appear first and immediately you’re thrust into the search results. But with Bing, you’re going to see that the searches are pretty demarcated and you can filter your search from things like images, news, references, video, etc. The point of Bing is to make it so you don’t need to leave their site to play music, watch videos, etc that you might find off of the website, thereby reducing the number of clicks you encounter. You’re able to zoom past any irrelevant sites and go straight to where you’re most interested.
Ingenious? I’d say it’s getting pretty close to as relevant of information as I’d want. They’re set to go live globally fully on June 3, but you’re able to start using it on June 1 for some portions of search. Check out their product guide and also their tutorial video to get a glimpse at what awaits the world on Bing. Maybe now search makes some sense.
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