Jun 24 2009
What is MS Bing?
Bing is Microsoft’s new search engine. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said that Bing will help people find information more quickly and use that information to accomplish the desired tasks. So will Bing beat Google in the war of search engines? Well, chances are slim. Bing isn’t quite a Google killer, but it does have some interesting features.
The best thing about Bing is that it displays more information on the search page in a more organized way than Google does. So how does Bing show more information? Well, to display more relevant information Bing organizes search results into categories.
Categories appear in the Explorer pane which runs down the left hand side bar of the search results page. Depending on the search word you enter you can see different categories of results on the explorer pane. For example, if your search word is ‘Tokyo’ search categories such as map, tourism, attractions, restaurants, weather, images and so on will appear in the explorer pane.
If the search term is ‘George W Bush’, the categories under the explorer pane will be Images, Biography, Family, Library, Interview and Timeline. Categories in the explorer pane are called quick tabs. These quick tabs are a way of telling the user that for a search term like George W Bush, Bing has results that relate to his biography, his images, his family and so on.
Categories will not appear for every word you search. Right now, only a few words will produce categorized search results. Sub categories called ‘Related Searches’ and ‘Search History’ appear below the Quick tabs.
Categorized Search Results
Another interesting feature of Bing is the categorized search results. The categorized search results are based on the categories in the Explorer pane. On a categorized search results page, Bing will show the categories from the Explorer Pane as the headings on the center page. Below each heading there will be search results relevant to that heading. So for example in the categorized search results page for a term like George W Bush, the user will get to see images of Bush across the top of the page followed by results under the headings Bush’s biography, Bush’s family, Bush’s library etc. These headers are clickable and link to additional sites related to the subject.
Search History
The search history area is also located on the left side of the search page. It appears below the ‘Categories’ and ‘Related Searches’. If you continue to use the same browser, the search history feature will be able to keep track of your queries for up to 48 hours. You can clear your history manually if you need to. Bing’s search history system is pretty basic compared to the search history feature offered by Google. But Microsoft said that they will continue to improve this feature.
Best Match
Some queries on Bing will generate only a single ‘Best Match’ result. The Best Match feature is based on the assumption that for certain search terms the user needs only a single link. The Best Match result appears when Bing is confident that the single link it shows is that of the very best site related to the query. Under the Best Match Bing will show links to important pages on the site and customer service numbers. In most cases a Best Match result will be followed by other search results too.
Quick Previews
The quick preview feature is designed to make search easier by showing more information. To activate this feature you only need to hover next to the right of a result on the search page and you will see a short excerpt from the site. This is a very useful feature because in many cases a user cannot decide whether a particular site is useful or not just by looking at the short description that appears below the clickable link. Since the quick preview feature shows more information from the inside pages of a site, a user will be able to decide whether this is the site they are looking for.
Instant Answers
This feature allows you to find instant answers to some of your queries. For instance, you can enter a flight number to get airline tracking information. You can also enter the names of movies followed by a Zip code and you will get the results for local listings of that movie. Google and Yahoo also offer such results.
Infinite scroll of images
This is an interesting feature. If you are searching for images on Bing you can just keep scrolling through the results until you find the one you were looking for. There is not need to hit the Next button.
Preview Video Feature
The preview video feature can auto-play videos in the search results. You only need to hover over them.
Another useful feature is the shopping search. It offers a variety of reviews. The opinion ranking feature is helpful too because it categorizes reviews into positive and negative.
Microsoft Bing Ad
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