Since the launch of bing a little over a year ago, Microsoft has tried all kinds of things to try and boost their search market share. Well they are out with their latest marketing attempt – switch to bing and Microsoft will donate $3 to schools in need!

As of the time of this writing, bing has donated nearly $45,000, $3 at a time. Continue Reading bing and their donations

I will cover this in greater detail later but for now, I figure it is worthwhile to provide a little info around Bing’s announcement today that their freshly redesigned Bing Webmaster Tools is now online.

Here is a core snippet from their announcement explaining what is included in the new version:  ... learn what is included in the new Bing toolset

Google saw more searches in June than May, but also a decline in market share.

According to comScore, Google has seen a small decline in its search market share for June 2010 with Yahoo and Microsoft both increasing last month. Continue Reading About Search Market Share

The following are the rough Bing vs Google search engine optimization notes from the SEO 101 Internet radio show that aired today which I co-host with John Carcutt; listen to the archived show in podcast format. These notes were compiled during my attendance at the SMX Advanced conference in Seattle the previous week.

Bing vs Google:

• Bing does not currently allow video or news xml sitemaps. Update from after show: I also can’t find evidence of support for image sitemaps at Bing; anyone know otherwise? Reference link.
• Bing’s results seem to have more immediate content with local connotations that can be acted upon without leaving the page. i.e. movie names may bring up full show times for all local theatres based on your location. Another example showed typing in the word “snow” would show snow reports for local mountains. The same goes for weather forecasts which Google has similar results for but only shows one source vs a scattering of weather sources for a local area.
• Sitelinks can be edited in Google but not Bing.

More about Google vs Bing »

The last time I posted I revealed that there would be a big surprise revealed by Bing the next day… in fact just hours later when the conference commenced once more. Well, I took eons to get back to you but the deal is this, Bing has rewritten their Webmaster Tools Center from the ground up and will be releasing it this Summer (around then).

There is a lot to report which I promise I will get to soon (including some video from the reveal) but for now, here are some links to assuage your thirst for information: Discover the new Bing Webmaster Tools »

I am at SMX Advanced in Seattle and today it came to my attention that Bing will be revealing some big news in just a few hours from now. So, if you are at SMX Advanced, be sure to visit the Bing sponsored presentation after this morning’s (June 9, 2010) Bing keynote (where the main announcement is likely to take place) and then don’t miss the Bing sponsored seminar that follows the keynote (hint). Read more…

This time of year, there are often few big stories to report on, but that does not mean there isn’t some interesting search engine news happening out in the world!

It seems that there is no escaping the legal system for any of our leading search engines these days as all three, Google, Yahoo, and MSN, are the defendants in a few new cases: Read more…

With the recent deal made between Bing and Yahoo one must ask them selves, what impact will this have on my search rankings. In this case, it may have a significant impact – at least eventually.

Let’s assume that all legalities are settled, and everything goes ahead as planned. What we will eventually see is a full transition of Bing results displayed when one does a search over at Yahoo. This will have the effect of there only being two major search engines out there, Google and Bing. Yahoo algorithm based results as we know them will cease to exist (at least on the organic level). Read more…

This morning Yahoo gave up the ghost on search and signed a 10 year deal adopting Microsoft’s Bing search platform as its primary search technology. In the agreement, Microsoft will be the leading search provider for all of Yahoo’s search properties (over 100 sites) while Yahoo focuses on surviving… err I meant, “allowing Yahoo to focus on what we do best, and that is to be the center of peoples’ lives online” (Yahoo CEO, Carol Bartz).

The following is Carol Bartz’s speech (note: this link and image on this page opens a windows media file) with several key sections bolded for your convenience: Read more…

Today AdAge reported that there is some big news expected from Yahoo and Microsoft tomorrow.

The gossip has been here and there but AdAge has lent some credibility to it all – Yahoo is going to partner with Microsoft to use Bing as its main search engine. The look of Yahoo, in terms of branding, is not expected to change; after all this is not a buyout but a partnership.

For more information check out the AdAge article I sourced this news from and I look forward to giving you more to chew on tomorrow.

by Ross Dunn, CEO, StepForth Web Marketing Inc.
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