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Bing and Yahoo! SEO

While there is no question that Google owns the majority of the market when it comes to search engine usage, there are still other search engines out there that should not be discounted. Bing and Yahoo together account for about a quarter of the market and Bing is still continuing to grow. Although these sites don’t reach the see the same number of users as Google does each day, it is still important to understand and adapt to Bing and Yahoo’s search result rankings when looking to reach a webpage’s search engine optimization (SEO). Here is an overview of optimizing your site for Bing, as this site grabs more of the market from Google each year.

When looking to optimize your site to rank higher in Bing search results, the main optimization points for Google still apply such as back-linking and social media presence but there are also some distinct differences. Probably one of the biggest differences between Google and Bing rankings comes down to the new and popular sites that Google focuses on versus older and more official sites (for example a site that ends in .gov or .edu) that Bing favors. Google’s main prerogative is to serve up sites that are socially relevant whereas Bing results contain more factual sites. Locally focused searches are also a place where one will see a substantial difference in search results. Google prefers to return results for larger, more established businesses whereas Bing will give priority to businesses within closest proximity which often include more smaller businesses.

It is widely assumed that Google is leading the pack when it comes to search algorithms and incorporating all aspects of the internet. This is not always true. Bing actually has developed more sophisticated rankings in two areas, the first being Flash media. Bing not only excels in indexing pages with Flash but also gives these sites an extra boost in ranking. Bing also beats Google when it comes to integrating social media. For example, Bing is able to recognize an individual’s Facebook friends rating for a company or product that shows up as a result for any particular search.

Despite Bing excelling in some ranking categories, it is still working behind the times relying on keywords for ranking rather than moving towards more intuitive search like Google which might partially explain its smaller audience. SEO is a forever changing landscape and while your site may be fully optimized for Google’s algorithms today, they could change tomorrow leaving your site out of the top search results. Keeping your webpage relevant to other search engines such as Bing and Yahoo will ensure that your site will not be lost in the millions of websites indexed every day.