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Yahoo-Bing update

Author's avatar By Chris Soames 10 Aug, 2011
Essential Essential topic

Yahoo now using Bing search results in UK and Europe

Importance: [rating=3] (Given the dominance of Google)

Recommended link: Summary of countries affected

Our commentary

The Yahoo & Bing alliance is old news from this time last year, but it is only recently that the affects of the alliance has started to make its way to the UK and Europe.

Advertisers & search businesses alike in the US have been using Bing to market on Yahoo for some time now.  Any search on Yahoo UK will now display results powered by Bing.

Marketing implications - what does this mean for your SEM strategy?

Bing-webmaster-toolsIt all depends. If you are a UK focussed business this shouldn't change your strategy too much, according to the latest hitwise data Yahoo & Bing between them only account for 6% of searches in the UK.

This is very different in the USA where between the businesses they account for 23% of search. In short don't waste too much time on ranking in Bing as you are very unlikely to see a good return on the time & budget invested. Making sure you have covered the basics for SEO is an obvious starting point so making use of Bing's webmaster tool suite will start to give you a basic idea of how Bing has indexed your site. While not as featured as Google Webmaster Tools it is well worth siging up to.

Some quick SEO Actions

  • Sign up for Bing webmaster tools
  • Verify your website(s)
  • Submit sitemaps
  • Configure / inform Bing of any URL parameters that should be ignored
  • Login after 7days & check for crawl errors
  • Check your rankings for top 20keyphrases against your Google performance

Outside of this if you are already working on search engine optimisation for Google you are likely to be doing the right things for Bing  as well. Key differences are:

  • Domain age is a bigger factor with Bing
  • Better structured & easier to index website is better for Bing
  • Optimised Internal anchor text will help more with Bing

The above list are still relevant to Google but it is believed they have a larger bearing on your results in Bing. We know from blogs on the Bing Webmaster Site that Social activity is likely to play a large part in the ranking algorithm so ensure this is core to any digital plans as it undoubtedly plays a large part with Googles ranking as well.

Author's avatar

By Chris Soames

Chris Soames is a Smart Insights blogger and consultant, he has worked in digital marketing for over 6 years with the last few years managing international web strategies for a leading travel brand. Now the Commercial Director at First 10, an Integrated marketing agency, he helps clients get clarity on their marketing strategy and create campaigns engineered to engage with their consumers to help drive sell-through. Most of all, Chris enjoys working with talented people who want to create great (& commercial) things not just tick boxes.

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