Bing, a web search engine, was launched in the year 2009 and is now available in 40 languages. It is the default search engine available in any of Microsoft’s browsers. It supports Web, Video, Image and map search.
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Who owns bing?
Bing is owned and handled by Microsoft. Microsoft’s agenda in investing in Bing is to make it the decision engine. Although Bing can’t compete with the existing popular search engines like Google, Bing has its unique features and Microsoft is trying to make the most of it.
Windows 8 integration with Bing
Windows 8.1 with Bing is otherwise called dows 8.1. It comes with Bing as a default search engine and other search engines can also be installed as well. Upon the integration of Windows 8 with Bing resulted in the smart search features of Bing. Also, it allows browsing through popular places, people and objects.
Features
The underlying goal of Bing is to reduce the number of unnecessary search results which are displayed on the screen while performing a search and to simplify the entire search process. The searches are organised in a way that makes it easy for the user to navigate. The key areas in which Bing focuses are Travel, Local, Health and shopping.
- The Deep Link feature allows the user to have a preview of the website before opening it.
- The feature Bing Travel shows the range of airfares and hotels available for reservations.
- It is known for providing the most accurate flight cost prediction.
- Instant Answers provides appropriate information regarding one’s geographical location.
- Its video search is better than popular search engines such as Google as it offers bigger thumbnails.
- Bing also has some cool interface features like a background image that changes daily.
Translator
Bing is available in over 40 languages and it has a Microsoft provided translation portal that translates the texts or web pages into a chosen language. The search engine is equipped with a backend translation software developed by Microsoft called Microsoft translator. When a user opts for translating an entire web page a bilingual viewer layout is displayed that allows the simultaneous browsing of the original web page text and the translation.
Bing News
Microsoft announced the Bing News feature for mobile devices with added smart labels as its tags for different news topics. These labels are named smart labels because they are deduced algorithmically. This feature is the outcome of the research Microsoft has done in which it was found that the majority of the population absorbed the news by reading the headlines and not the articles as a whole.
How to use Bing?
The upper right corner of the browser has a menu, the drop-down menu shows several options, select settings from these options. Search for the default search engine and change it to Bing. It uses ASP.NET as its programming language.
Advertising through Bing
Opting for the paid adverts on Bing increases the reach for a large audience and the probability of reaching out to a particular audience of choice. Bing also provides an option of setting the audience belonging to a particular demographic so that more traffic can be driven and more products can be sold.
This might contrast with the less search volume of Bing, however through Bing the number of targeted audience who are more likely to convert.
Bing Rewards
This was a feature launched in the year 2010 as a way to increase the number of people using the Bing search engine.
Through this, the users can earn rewards for using Bing. By signing up for the Bing Rewards accounts one can earn money no matter which device they browse using Bing and other products and services of Bing.
Downside of Bing
The Bing users might be aware of the fact that it has a scenic background which takes time to get loaded. For users who already have a slow internet connection, this problem might persist for a much longer time which in turn hinders the user experience hence they bounce off.
When it comes to search accuracy it isn’t par with the other search engines such as Google.
The image search does go as smoothly with Bing as it does with the other search engines.
All the search results that Bing provides us with are less user-related and Bing cannot personalise the search results as it has fewer user data.
Bing has been attacked for being slower when it comes to indexing websites.
Revenue model
Being the second most popular search engine worldwide Bing draws its income from its advertising. Bing publishes advertisements upon the payment of a specific amount of money which is its main source of income.
To read more interesting business models, refer to Zeen blog.
