A Guide To Bing Search Engine

It’s hard to believe that Bing has been around for over 10 years now. As an alternative to Google and the default search engine for Microsoft products, Bing enjoys a respectable 36% US desktop search market and has a growing international search audience in the UK, France, Norway, Germany, Sweden, Spain, and more.

Google vs Bing

Google sees 6.9 billion searches per day compared to Bing’s nearly 900 million searches per day. While the search engine giant surpasses Bing’s daily search volume by an enormous number, Bing has loyal uses even though Microsoft spends very little budget on marketing its search engine.

An advantage for Bing is that it is integrated with other Microsoft products. While many searchers use both Google and Bing to do research with, Bing searches come from more than just bing.com. Bing searches occur via devices using Windows 10. The next time you search using Windows 10, even though a Windows logo appears, you’re searching via Bing.

Bing also offers rewards for using Microsoft products. You can earn points and turn it into gift cards, sweepstake entries including $500 to Target, and give to non-profit organizations just for signing into your Microsoft account and using it for search purposes.

While there are differences, Bing and Google are pretty similar. Bing offers “snapshots” which are short snippets of information while you’re searching that appear without having to fully search or click your query. Google offers a similar feature with “now on tap.”

Another similarity between the two search engines is what Bing refers to as Deep Links. Deep Links are the popular pages from your site that appear beneath a top ranked SERP. Google refers to these as Sitelinks. Within Bing Webmaster Tools, you can manage your Deep Links in the following ways:

• Extend blocks. By extending your blocks on Deep Links, you will have increased your block expiration from the standard 90-day block.
• Delete blocks. You can choose to delete blocks at any time here.
• Export records. By exporting your Deep Link report, you can see a full record of your Deep Link blocks for your website.

Bing also offers Bing Maps, paid advertising options, and more that are similar to Google.

Google vs Bing image search

While Bing struggles to keep up with Google’s search market share, Bing image search is known for functionality and high-quality results. As image size becomes increasingly important for mobile optimization, Bing has adjusted their image search to immediately provide users with image sizes at first glance.

While both search engines offer similar image search experiences, but Bing’s plethora of filtering options (image size, aspect ratio, color, photo or illustration, type, facial features, date and license), pleasing user interface and reverse-image search functionality makes the perennial 2nd place finisher a strong candidate for your image-based searches. Google offers a simpler image search experience than Bing with many of the same features, compared to Bing’s more Pinterest-like layout.

Other Bing image search features include the following:

• Reverse image search Using Bing’s Image Match, you can perform a more complex search using an image verses a query.
• Image-based product search Using this search form, users or shoppers can upload an image in order to locate a better price for their products from other sites.
• Visual Search With visual search, you can search what you see by using your camera and the photos you take via your smartphone.
• Image trending Here, you can simply find the images that are trending via Bing’s search engine.
• Integration with Microsoft Office Bing is integrated into Microsoft Office including image search. You can use Bing via Microsoft Office to conduct searches through the software.

What is Bing Webmaster Tools?

Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console and helps you keep track of your site’s performance, indexation, sitemaps and more. You can combine the use of BWT and BrightEdge and other analytics tools to understand the overall health of your website.

The Reports & Data section of BWT can help you find your site’s activity including data for clicks, impressions, total indexed pages, and crawled pages. Submit sitemaps, check for crawl errors, and analyze the mobile friendliness of your pages using BWT. You can also find a deep dive of details on page traffic, top searched keywords in terms of impressions and clicks, and SEO reports which include info into where your site needs SEO work.

Other reports you can collect data from in BWT including the following:

• Page Traffic Report This report will tell you how your individual pages are performing. Here, you can adjust date ranges to understand your data even more.
• Index Explorer Using this report, you can understand exactly how Bing understands and reads your site including redirects, broken links, and more.
• Search Keywords Report This report will open your eyes to which organic keywords are driving clicks and impressions to your site.
• Using SEO Reports Bing uses 15 SEO best practices to determine page-level recommendations for you to consider correcting on your site.
• Using the Inbound Links Tool You can use this tool to get a full backlink report.
• Crawl Information Report If you’re wondering about what crawl issues Bing came across while crawling your site, this is the report you should dive into.

Bing, as a search engine, continues to become more popular amongst searchers each year. While Google is still the front-runner in preferred search engines, there’s no telling if Bing could surpass the search engine giant one day. With a clean look, several advantages over Google, and a growing international market, Bing is bigger than we think. As digital marketers continue to implement new content strategies and work to better SERP rankings, it’s important to keep Bing in mind. Google may be the front runner of search engines but grow your organic traffic by optimizing for Bing as well.