bing logoIf you are looking for the 2016 Bing Ranking Factor’s guide then I have a question for you: When is the last time you have looked at your site analytics?

I monitor several high ranking sites and the traffic referred to them via Bing is just so minimal I can’t help but wonder why someone would put effort in to ranking in Bing.

Wait, what?

I never, ever put something on this website that does not accurately answer the intent of one’s search or provide some sort of value.

Today is no different. Although, if you were expecting a scientific list of ranking factors, unfortunately, I do not have that. Then again, neither does anyone else, and my speculation is just as good as theirs is, isn’t it?

“But Len, I want all the traffic I can get” you say. Well, go write another article for your website that will rank well in Google search.

I’m sure at some point in 2016 someone with way too much time on their hands will spend significantly more time than I have coming up with a list. Good for them. Then again, I have a very hard time trusting 99.99% of SEOs, especially those who have lots of free time to research Bing.

I am also dying to know if anyone actually clicks on to this page, so, you are now my guinea pig. 🙂

That said, on to what I know about Bing

I’ve spent about 8 minutes on Bing this year, and thousands of hours in Google. Are my priorities out of line? Absolutely not.

I have stuck up for Microsoft on many occasions. With a background in IT I have deal with every Linux user and Mac fanboy complaint on the planet about how bad MS sucks. And, I don’t buy it. They are not that bad at all, although I am not that happy with Windows 10. Or 8.1. Or 8. Or Vista… Ok. Well, anyways, I thought with Cortana built into 10 I’d get some more traffic to my sites from Bing but I just don’t see enough to merit more than this 8 minute study. Still, simply due to the amount of time I spend on the computer, I pick up more in 8 minutes than most people will in a hundred hours, so here’s what I noticed in my annual Bing review:

  • Bing pays more attention to title tags than Google does. Google will rank a lawyer page as good (usually) as an attorney page based on their ranking factors, synonyms aside. Bing pays closer attention to words in a title (or possibly on a page as well). In other words, Bing feels like it is 2 years behind Google and pays closer attention to keywords, ignoring semantics.
  • Bing seems to like content. I monitor a LOT of sites. I just plugged about 40 of them in to Bing and they generally rank fairly well. In fact, some which rank well in Google due to backlinks rank lower at Bing. Maybe Bing values links a little less than Google does.
  • Bing appears to really like old sites. A few of the sites I manage are from the 1990’s and they are pegged right to the top of Bing. (sure, maybe they just value older links, who knows)..
  • Bing Local / Bing Places. It is worth mentioning Bing Local here. While I am not an expert here it is a good idea to get in to the Bing places dashboard, claim your place listing and make sure it has the same name, address, and phone # information as you have over at Yelp as Bing pulls Yelp’s reviews over. Simple.
  • Social signals don’t seem to matter. I forget where, but I’ve heard over and over “social signals this”, “social signals that”. Well, what I usually hear on social media is complaints about companies. Are the most complained about companies the best search results? No. Also, all of the high ranking sites which I manage that are pegged to the top of Bing do not use social media. At all. So… Gimme a break.

Conclusion:

If you are familiar with any of my other ramblings over the last 20 years I really have nothing new to say here. Create easy to use websites, create excellent content, create lots of content, and cater to humans, not algorithms, because algorithms want what is best for humans. Easy.

As for Bing in 2016, well, Bing just rolled out their mobile friendly test tool. Most of us went to responsive websites years ago. With these types of cutting edge algorithm changes 😉 I can’t imagine much will be new in 2016.

Got an opinion? Bing it on!

Len
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On December 19, 2015   /   SEO News & Tips   /   Leave a comment

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