We have had many clients ask us how Bing differs from Google and if there are SEO considerations to account for. Coincidentally, MarketingProfs.com gave a webinar last week with the topic of optimizing your site for Bing vs. Google and uncovering the differentiators. Google now has 70% of search market share while Bing is now around 10%. The 10% is in speculation depending on who you ask but we believe this 10% is the amount of search market share that MSN/Live search engines had before Bing was introduced. Bing’s search market share is anticipated to increase when and if the Yahoo! deal is approved.

While nothing earth-shattering, or new, was uncovered during the hour-long presentation relative to SEO we did take notice of a few observations in relation to how Bing displays several types of content and search engine results.

Let’s begin with the bottom line - Bing organizes and displays their data differently than Google does. Bing’s focus is on making travel and shopping related searches better for the user to make a decision (hence, the decision engine) while Google’s ultimate goal is to deliver the most relevant results for a specific search query no matter what topic. There are new and different opportunities that Bing offers if you are in one of these key industries (shopping and travel). While Bing will be able to gain in these areas we don’t believe SEO strategies should change dramatically. Following best practices, building a crawlable site and creating great content are still the keys to success with all search engines.

Here are some of the items that make Bing different from Google:

1) Bing’s “Best Match” or top result is manually chosen by an actual human, not algorithmically as is Google’s. Not every search will have a “best match” because of this manual selection. This human moderation (similar to DMOZ and Wikipedia) confirms the importance and relevancy of quality site content and as we all know, content remains king in all search engines. It also means that Bing may be a bit harder to game for a top ranking for anything other than a branded search. That is unless you truly are the most relevant, useful site for the target query.

2) Bing will show results from “their” web properties and third parties with which Bing has agreements such as MSNBC, Hulu, MSN, and others before anyone else’s. With Yahoo! becoming more of a media entity, this plays right into Bing’s apparent strategy. We are seeing how Microsoft is positioning this search engine to leverage their other properties as news and content sources. This could and most likely will have a huge impact on search relevancy, since the most relevant result won’t always be shown.

3) Bing’s image search likes absolute URLs as opposed to relative ones. (Absolute URLs are when the domain is in the URL like www.libertyinteractivemarketing.com/directory versus simply pointing to /directory) The application of this is that if an image is linked from another site, the original site will still get the visibility in image search. So don’t steal images, but if you do, make sure to host them on your own server.

4) Local ads on Bing are supplied by YellowPages.com. So, if you want your business’ text ad to appear on Bing local search you’ll need to advertise with YellowPages.com.

5) Bing Shopping is CPA-based (cost per action) and sorts results based on a combination of price, shipping and Bing’s cashback program. An important note: You can’t participate in Bing Shopping unless you are already an advertiser on Bing/MSNAdcenter.

A key element regarding personal privacy is that Bing indexes the Facebook profile pictures and photo albums of fans of pages (business profiles) and shows them in its image search with little regard for relevancy. So, for example, if you search your company name on Bing, it may pull in pictures of people who fanned your page – and not necessarily pictures that are representative of the brand or that either party wants shown to the world. We find this extremely scary. If you do too, read this related article on Facebook pages now included in Google’s real-time results.

Have you noticed other differences between Bing and Google? We would love to hear how people are using Bing and other observations about the new “decision engine.”

It was just announced that Facebook pages will now be a part of Google’s real-time results. There is still no way of knowing if or when your status updates will also start to appear but pay attention, this is a major game changer. If you thought changing your privacy settings on your Facebook profile was going to keep everyone on the outside, think again. Last week we sat in on a webinar on Bing’s search engine and one feature hit a nerve with us - how and from where Bing pull images into their results.

We took a closer look by searching our own company name “liberty interactive marketing” in Bing’s images tab and found that profile pictures of our Facebook fans came up for our very own company name.

The key point to highlight here is that there is no such thing as privacy. There is only perceived privacy. There are loopholes. Kind of like when you join an association, purchase membership, or opt-in to any program - many companies use that “relationship” as a legitimate reason to contact you or loan out your informaiton. In this case, the relationship of you fanning a company page may be permission by proxy to Facebook then to Bing (given their new relationship with Facebook) to pull in any data they want….this includes your mug or at some point status updates.

While both Google and Bing are figuring out real-time search and what data makes sense to display as a result (primarily trending for now), Facebook is slowly opening up the gates of information and in my opinion, in all the wrong ways.

Facebook is taking the fun out of Facebook. I would really like to be wrong in this prediction, but this direction seems to be headed down the wrong road. Why?

Because of the unknown. Google plans on more than 550 updates to their algorithm in the coming year (they made over 450 in 2007), their search engine algorithm is smart, really smart. There is no telling how the engineers will figure out how to use this data and it may be at your expense.

Privacy is gone. Bing has proven that with its image display.

If this gets your blood boiling, read these articles for more search engine marketing dish:
Facebook Pages Now Part of Google’s Real-Time Results
How Google’s Algorithm Rules the Web

In a recent conversation with a colleague we were discussing whether a company should tackle on-site SEO on their own or hire a firm. Needless to say which side I took. This led to a conversation in home improvement that directly relates to outsourcing SEO vs doing it yourself.

Our conversation concluded on this note:
Companies like Home Depot have built their business on telling people they can make their own home improvements while Contractors have built their business on fixing what home improvements people do themselves.

Enter DIY Search Engine Optimization vs. Hiring an Search Engine Optimization Firm
The Home Depot and Contractor scenario is nearly the perfect analogy to describing whether a company should take on SEO in-house or outsource it.

If you are a DIY-er you probably know the list of things that you need to have done and you may even know how to implement some of them. Let’s take for instance installing a door - seems simple enough - measure the opening, buy the door, install the door. For most DIY-ers they even know the inventory of tools. Where it starts to get fuzzy is using the tools correctly and installing the door correctly (i.e. is it level, is it plumb, etc). If this is your first, second or even your third time installing a door it still doesn’t compare to a practitioner who has installed hundreds even thousands of doors. They can install it correctly and in a fraction of the time.

This is the same for SEO - you may know what to do but you may not know how to do it. Or better yet, do it the right way. It is one thing if you want to have something done, it is another to want to have something done right. For on-site SEO it is a lot more than just keywords, titles, metadata or the URL structure. It is not just about doing simple keyword research and a simple competitive analysis to arrive at your chosen terms.

In most cases, it’s what the DIY-er doesn’t know that hurts them. It’s the simple tricks, the new tools, the history and experience of having done it over and over again as well as how things have changed over time that affect success (the history of SEO).

Most importantly, it is all of the other factors that DIY-ers don’t even consider that can have a greater impact on search engine visibility.

A few months ago we received a phone call from someone who said they have been doing SEO for 6-months and felt they did a pretty good job on all the titles and metadata for their client’s new site and were wondering why they had zero leads coming in since this site was built “search engine friendly” and had “keywords”. The prior site was receiving 5-6 leads per week.

One of the factors they dismissed was the domain name. They failed to realize that the new domain they were switching the site to was brand new and had little to no visibility within search engines. They didn’t even consider this as a factor and launched a personal site on the old domain with over 11 years of authority and credibility within the search engines - basically wiping out all of their relevancy for their business. So now they had two new sites and are having to start all over.

Imagine the investment over that 11 years. And now? All gone and they must start all over in what is now an even more competitive arena than online was 10 years ago.

What your company should consider before deciding on whether to outsource Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or attempt it in-house:

• While SEO can be viewed as a mechanical process with steps and checklists, so can the process of building a house. Given the rules and codes and engineering principles needed to build a house, would you rather take the risk of figuring it out for yourself, or would it be more wise to hire a professional.
• There is also an intangible side to SEO, while you may know exactly how much you SAVED by doing it yourself, you will never know how much it COSTED you in terms of lost revenue or visibility.

Consider this when looking to do on-site SEO in-house, do you really know what you are doing? Is it worth the risk? What is it that you don’t know that may hurt you or even worse may cause it to all be thrown away?

photo credit: DIY Life