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Microsoft Bing (commonly known as Bing) is a web search engine owned and operated by Microsoft. The service has its origins in Microsoft's previous search engines: MSN Search, Windows Live Search and later Live Search. Bing provides a variety of search services, including web, video, image and map search products. It is developed using
ASP.NET ASP.NET is an open-source, server-side web-application framework designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. It was developed by Microsoft to allow programmers to build dynamic web sites, applications and services. The name sta ...
. Bing, Microsoft's replacement for Live Search, was unveiled by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on May 28, 2009, at the ''
All Things Digital AllThingsD.com was a US online publication that specialized in technology and startup company news, analysis and coverage. It was founded in 2007 by Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg, as an extension of the annual meetings ''D: All Things Digital C ...
'' conference in San Diego, California, for release on June 3, 2009. Notable new features at the time included the listing of search suggestions while queries are entered and a list of related searches (called "Explore pane") based on semantic technology from Powerset, which Microsoft had acquired in 2008. In July 2009, Microsoft and Yahoo! announced a deal in which Bing would power
Yahoo! Search Yahoo! Search is a Yahoo! internet search provider that uses Microsoft's Bing search engine to power results, since 2009, apart from four years with Google until 2019. Originally, "Yahoo! Search" referred to a Yahoo!-provided interface that s ...
. Yahoo! finished the transition in 2012. In October 2011, Microsoft stated that they were working on new back-end search infrastructure with the goal of delivering faster and slightly more relevant search results for users. Known as "Tiger", the new index-serving technology had been incorporated into Bing globally since August that year. In May 2012, Microsoft announced another redesign of its search engine that includes "Sidebar", a social feature that searches users' social networks for information relevant to the search query. The
BitFunnel BitFunnel is the search engine indexing algorithm and a set of components used in the Bing search engine, which were made open source in 2016. BitFunnel uses bit-sliced signatures instead of an inverted index in an attempt to reduce operations c ...
search engine indexing Search engine indexing is the collecting, parsing, and storing of data to facilitate fast and accurate information retrieval. Index design incorporates interdisciplinary concepts from linguistics, cognitive psychology, mathematics, informatics, and ...
algorithm and various components of the search engine were made open source by Microsoft in 2016. , (Microsoft) Bing is the third largest search engine globally, with a query volume of 4.58%, behind Google (77%) and
Baidu Baidu, Inc. ( ; , meaning "hundred times") is a Chinese multinational technology company specializing in Internet-related services and products and artificial intelligence (AI), headquartered in Beijing's Haidian District. It is one of the la ...
(14.45%).
Yahoo! Search Yahoo! Search is a Yahoo! internet search provider that uses Microsoft's Bing search engine to power results, since 2009, apart from four years with Google until 2019. Originally, "Yahoo! Search" referred to a Yahoo!-provided interface that s ...
, which Bing largely powers, has 2.63%.


History


MSN Search

Microsoft originally launched
MSN MSN (meaning Microsoft Network) is a web portal and related collection of Internet services and apps for Windows and mobile devices, provided by Microsoft and launched on August 24, 1995, alongside the release of Windows 95. The Microsoft Net ...
Search in the third quarter of 1998, using search results from
Inktomi Inktomi Corporation was a company that provided software for Internet service providers (ISPs). It was incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in Foster City, California, United States. Customers included Microsoft, HotBot, Amazon.com, e ...
. It consisted of a search engine, index, and web crawler. In early 1999, MSN Search launched a version which displayed listings from
Looksmart LookSmart is an American search advertising, content management, online media, and technology company. It provides search, machine learning and chatbot technologies as well as pay-per-click and contextual advertising services. LookSmart also ...
blended with results from Inktomi except for a short time in 1999 when results from
AltaVista AltaVista was a Web search engine established in 1995. It became one of the most-used early search engines, but lost ground to Google Search, Google and was purchased by Yahoo! in 2003, which retained the brand, but based all AltaVista searches ...
were used instead. Microsoft decided to make a large investment in web search by building its own web crawler for MSN Search, the index of which was updated weekly and sometimes daily. The upgrade started as a
beta Beta (, ; uppercase , lowercase , or cursive ; grc, βῆτα, bē̂ta or ell, βήτα, víta) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 2. In Modern Greek, it represents the voiced labiod ...
program in November 2004, and came out of beta in February 2005. This occurred a year after rival
Yahoo! Search Yahoo! Search is a Yahoo! internet search provider that uses Microsoft's Bing search engine to power results, since 2009, apart from four years with Google until 2019. Originally, "Yahoo! Search" referred to a Yahoo!-provided interface that s ...
rolled out its own crawler too. Image search was powered by a third party,
Picsearch Picsearch was a Swedish company which developed and provided image search services for large websites. The image search services developed by Picsearch power several major Internet companies, such as Lycos. Other Picsearch customers include reg ...
. The service also started providing its search results to other search engine portals in an effort to better compete in the market.


Windows Live Search

The first public beta of Windows Live Search was unveiled on March 8, 2006, with the final release on September 11, 2006 replacing MSN Search. The new search engine used search tabs that include Web, news, images, music, desktop, local, and
Microsoft Encarta ''Microsoft Encarta'' is a discontinued digital multimedia encyclopedia published by Microsoft from 1993 to 2009. Originally sold on CD-ROM or DVD, it was also available on the World Wide Web via an annual subscription, although later articles ...
. In the roll-over from MSN Search to Windows Live Search, Microsoft stopped using Picsearch as their image search provider and started performing their own image search, fueled by their own internal image search algorithms.


Live Search

On March 21, 2007, Microsoft announced that it would separate its search developments from the
Windows Live Windows Live is a discontinued brand name for a set of web services and software products developed by Microsoft as part of its software-as-a-service platform. Chief components under the brand name included web services (all of which were exposed ...
services family, rebranding the service as Live Search. Live Search was integrated into the ''Live Search and Ad Platform'' headed by
Satya Nadella Satya Narayana Nadella (, ; born 19 August 1967) is an Indian-American business executive. He is the executive chairman and CEO of Microsoft, succeeding Steve Ballmer in 2014 as CEO and John W. Thompson in 2021 as chairman. Before becoming CEO, ...
, part of Microsoft's Platform and Systems division. As part of this change, Live Search was merged with Microsoft adCenter. A series of reorganizations and consolidations of Microsoft's search offerings were made under the Live Search branding. On May 23, 2008, Microsoft announced the discontinuation of Live Search Books and Live Search Academic and integrated all academic and book search results into regular search, and as a result this also included the closure of Live Search Books Publisher Program. Soon after, Windows Live Expo was discontinued on July 31, 2008. Live Search Macros, a service for users to create their own custom search engines or use macros created by other users, was also discontinued shortly after. On May 15, 2009, Live Product Upload, a service which allowed merchants to upload products information onto Live Search Products, was discontinued. The final reorganization came as Live Search QnA which was rebranded as MSN QnA on February 18, 2009, although it was discontinued on May 21, 2009.


Rebrand as Bing

Microsoft recognized that there would be a problem with branding as long as the word "Live" remained in the name. As an effort to create a new identity for Microsoft's search services, Live Search was officially replaced by Bing on June 3, 2009. The Bing name was chosen through focus groups, and Microsoft decided that the name was memorable, short, and easy to spell, and that it would function well as a URL around the world. The word would remind people of the sound made during "the moment of discovery and decision making". Microsoft was assisted by branding consultancy Interbrand in their search for the best name for the new search engine. The name also has strong similarity to the word ''
bingo Bingo or B-I-N-G-O may refer to: Arts and entertainment Gaming * Bingo, a game using a printed card of numbers ** Bingo (British version), a game using a printed card of 15 numbers on three lines; most commonly played in the UK and Ireland ** Bi ...
'', which is used to mean that something sought has been found or realized, as is interjected when winning the game
Bingo Bingo or B-I-N-G-O may refer to: Arts and entertainment Gaming * Bingo, a game using a printed card of numbers ** Bingo (British version), a game using a printed card of 15 numbers on three lines; most commonly played in the UK and Ireland ** Bi ...
. Microsoft advertising strategist David Webster originally proposed the name "Bang" for the same reasons the name Bing was ultimately chosen (easy to spell, one syllable, and easy to remember). He noted, "It's there, it's an exclamation point ..It's the opposite of a question mark." This name was ultimately not chosen because it could not be properly used as a verb in the context of an internet search; Webster commented "Oh, 'I banged it' is very different than 'I binged it'". Qi Lu, president of Microsoft Online Services, also announced that Bing's official Chinese name is ''bì yìng'' (), which literally means "very certain to respond" or "very certain to answer" in Chinese. While being tested internally by Microsoft employees, Bing's codename was '' Kumo'' ( くも), which came from the
Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...
word for '' spider'' ( 蜘蛛; くも, '' kumo'') as well as '' cloud'' ( ; くも, '' kumo''), referring to the manner in which search engines " spider" Internet resources to add them to their database, as well as cloud computing.


Legal challenges

On July 31, 2009, The Laptop Company, Inc. stated in a press release that it would challenge Bing's trademark application, alleging that Bing may cause confusion in the marketplace as Bing and their product BongoBing both do online product search. Software company TeraByte Unlimited, which has a product called BootIt Next Generation (abbreviated to BING), also contended the trademark application on similar grounds, as did a Missouri-based design company called Bing! Information Design. Microsoft contended that claims challenging its trademark were without merit because these companies filed for U.S. federal trademark applications only after Microsoft filed for the Bing trademark in March 2009.


Deal with Yahoo!

On July 29, 2009, Microsoft and Yahoo! announced that they had made a ten-year deal in which the Yahoo!
search engine A search engine is a software system designed to carry out web searches. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in a ...
would be replaced by Bing, retaining the Yahoo!
user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine fr ...
. Yahoo! got to keep 88% of the revenue from all search ad sales on its site for the first five years of the deal, and have the right to sell advertising on some Microsoft sites. All Yahoo! Search global customers and partners made the transition by early 2012.


Features


Third-party integration

Facebook users have the option to share their searches with their Facebook friends using
Facebook Connect The Facebook Platform is the set of services, tools, and products provided by the social networking service Facebook for third-party developers to create their own applications and services that access data in Facebook. The current Facebo ...
. On June 10, 2013, Apple announced that it would be dropping Google as its web search engine in favor of Bing. This feature is only integrated with
iOS 7 iOS 7 is the seventh major release of the iOS mobile operating system developed by Apple Inc., being the successor to iOS 6. It was announced at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference on June 10, 2013, and was released on September 1 ...
and higher and for users with an iPhone 4S or higher as the feature is only integrated with Siri, Apple's personal assistant.


Integration with Windows 8.1

Windows 8.1 Windows 8.1 is a release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on August 27, 2013, and broadly released for retail sale on October 17, 2013, about a year after the retail release of its pre ...
includes Bing "Smart Search" integration, which processes all queries submitted through the Windows Start Screen.


Translator

Bing Translator is a user facing translation portal provided by Microsoft to translate texts or entire web pages into different languages. All translation pairs are powered by the
Microsoft Translator Microsoft Translator is a multilingual machine translation cloud service provided by Microsoft. Microsoft Translator is a part of Microsoft Cognitive Services and integrated across multiple consumer, developer, and enterprise products; including ...
, a statistical machine translation platform and web service, developed by Microsoft Research, as its backend translation software. Two transliteration pairs (between
Chinese (Simplified) Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters used in mainland China, Malaysia and Singapore, as prescribed by the ''Table of General Standard Chinese Characters''. Along with traditional Chinese characters, they are on ...
and
Chinese (Traditional) Traditional Chinese characters are one type of standard Chinese character sets of the contemporary written Chinese. The traditional characters had taken shapes since the clerical change and mostly remained in the same structure they took at ...
) are provided by Microsoft's Windows International team. As of September 2020, Bing Translator offers translations in 70 different language systems.


Knowledge and Action Graph

In 2015 Microsoft announced its knowledge and action API to correspond with Google's
Knowledge graph The Google Knowledge Graph is a knowledge base from which Google serves relevant information in an infobox beside its search results. This allows the user to see the answer in a glance. The data is generated automatically from a variety of s ...
with 1 billion instances and 20 billion related facts.


Bing Predicts

The idea for a prediction engine was first suggested by Walter Sun, Development Manager for the Core Ranking team at Bing, when he noticed that school districts were more frequently searched before a major weather event in the area was forecasted, because searchers wanted to find out if a closing or delay was caused. He concluded that the time and location of major weather events could accurately be predicted without referring to a weather forecast by observing major increases in search frequency of school districts in the area. This inspired Bing to use its search data to infer outcomes of certain events, such as winners of reality shows. Bing Predicts launched on April 21, 2014. The first reality shows to be featured on Bing Predicts were ''
The Voice The Voice may refer to: Fictional entities * The Voice or Presence, a fictional representation of God in DC Comics * The Voice (''Dune''), a fictional ability in the ''Dune'' universe * The Voice, a character in the American TV series ''Cleo ...
'', ''
American Idol ''American Idol'' is an American singing competition television series created by Simon Fuller, produced by Fremantle North America and 19 Entertainment, and distributed by Fremantle North America. It aired on Fox from June 11, 2002, to Ap ...
'', and ''
Dancing with the Stars ''Dancing with the Stars'' is the name of various international television series based on the format of the British TV series ''Strictly Come Dancing'', which is distributed by BBC Studios, the commercial arm of the BBC. Currently the forma ...
''. The prediction accuracy for Bing Predicts is 80% for ''American Idol'', and 85% for ''The Voice''. Bing Predicts also predicts the outcomes of major political elections in the United States. Bing Predicts had 97% accuracy for the
2014 United States Senate elections The 2014 United States Senate elections were held on November 4, 2014. A total of 36 seats in the 100-member U.S. Senate were contested. Thirty-three Class 2 seats were contested for regular six-year terms to be served from January 3, 2015 to Ja ...
, 96% accuracy for the
2014 United States House of Representatives elections The 2014 United States House of Representatives elections were held on November 4, 2014, in the middle of President Barack Obama's second term in office. Elections were held for all 435 seats of the House of Representatives, representing the 50 s ...
, and an 89% accuracy for the
2014 United States gubernatorial elections United States gubernatorial elections were held on November 4, 2014, in 36 states and three territories, concurrent with other elections during the 2014 United States elections. The Republicans defended 22 seats, compared to the Democrats' 14. T ...
. Bing Predicts also made predictions for the results of the 2016 United States presidential primaries. It has also done predictions in sports, including a perfect 15 for 15 in the 2014 World Cup, leading to positive press such as a Business Insider story on its successes and a PC World article on how Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella did well in his March Madness bracket entry. In 2016, Bing Predicts failed to accurately predict the winner of the
2016 US presidential election The 2016 United States presidential election was the 58th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8, 2016. The Republican ticket of businessman Donald Trump and Indiana governor Mike Pence defeated the Democratic ticket ...
, suggesting that Hillary Clinton would win by 81%.


International

Bing is available in many languages and has been localized for many countries. Even if the language of the search and of the results are the same, Bing delivers substantially different results for different parts of the world.


Webmaster services

Bing allows webmasters to manage the web crawling status of their own websites through
Bing Webmaster Center Bing Webmaster Tools (previously the ''Bing Webmaster Center'') is a free service as part of Microsoft's Bing search engine which allows webmasters to add their websites to the Bing index crawler, see their site's performance in Bing (clicks, impre ...
. Users may also submit contents to Bing via the ''Bing Local Listing Center'', which allows businesses to add business listings onto
Bing Maps Bing Maps (previously Live Search Maps, Windows Live Maps, Windows Live Local, and MSN Virtual Earth) is a web mapping service provided as a part of Microsoft's Bing suite of search engines and powered by the Bing Maps Platform framework. Since 2 ...
and Bing Local.


Mobile services

Bing Mobile Bing for mobile (formerly ''Live Search Mobile'') is a search tool for handheld mobile devices from Microsoft as part of their Bing (search engine), Bing search engine. It is designed for mobile device displays. Bing Mobile is built into Windows ...
allows users to conduct search queries on their mobile devices, either via the mobile browser or a downloadable mobile application.


Bing News

Bing News (previously ''Live Search News'') is a news aggregator powered by artificial intelligence. In August 2015 Microsoft announced that Bing News for mobile devices added algorithmic-deduced "smart labels" that essentially act as topic tags, allowing users to click through and explore possible relationships between different news stories. The feature emerged as a result from Microsoft research that found out about 60% of the people consume news by only reading headlines, rather than read the articles. Other labels that have been deployed since then include publisher logos and fact-check tags.


Software


Toolbars

The Bing Bar, a
browser extension A browser extension is a small software module for customizing a web browser. Browsers typically allow a variety of extensions, including user interface modifications, cookie management, ad blocking, and the custom scripting and styling of web ...
toolbar The toolbar, also called a bar or standard toolbar (originally known as ribbon) is a graphical control element on which on-screen icons can be used. A toolbar often allows for quick access to functions that are commonly used in the program. Some ...
that replaced the MSN Toolbar, provides users with links to Bing and MSN content from within their web browser without needing to navigate away from a web page they are already on. The user can customize the theme and color scheme of the Bing Bar as well as choose which MSN content buttons to present within the user interface. Bing Bar also displays the current local weather forecast and stock market positions. The Bing Bar features integration with Microsoft Bing search engine. In addition to the traditional web search functions, Bing Bar also allows search on other Bing services such as Images, Video, News and Maps. When users perform a search on another search engine, the Bing Bar's search box will automatically populate itself, allowing the user to view the results from Bing, should it be desired. Bing Bar also links to
Outlook.com Outlook.com is a webmail service that is part of the Microsoft 365 product family. It offers mail, calendaring, contacts, and tasks services. Founded in 1996 by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith as Hotmail, it was acquired by Microsoft in 1997 ...
, Skype and Facebook.


Desktop

Microsoft released a beta version of Bing Desktop, a program developed to allow users to search Bing from the desktop, on April 4, 2012. The initial release followed shortly on April 24, 2012, supporting
Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, ...
only. With the release of version 1.1 in December 2012 it supported Windows XP and higher. Bing Desktop allows users to initiate a web search from the desktop, view news headlines, automatically set their background to the Bing homepage image, or choose a background from the previous nine background images. A similar program, the Bing Search gadget, was a Windows Sidebar Gadget that used Bing to fetch the user's search results and render them directly in the gadget. Another gadget, the Bing Maps gadget, displayed real-time traffic conditions using Bing Maps. The gadget provided shortcuts to driving directions, local search and full-screen traffic view of major US and Canadian cities, including
Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...
,
Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- most p ...
, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Montreal, New York City, Oklahoma City, Ottawa, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Portland,
Providence Providence often refers to: * Providentia, the divine personification of foresight in ancient Roman religion * Divine providence, divinely ordained events and outcomes in Christianity * Providence, Rhode Island, the capital of Rhode Island in the ...
,
Sacramento ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...
,
Salt Lake City Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the capital and most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in Utah. With a population of 200,133 in 2020, t ...
, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis,
Tampa Tampa () is a city on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The city's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and the seat of Hillsborough Count ...
, Toronto, Vancouver, and
Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, Na ...
Prior to October 30, 2007, the gadgets were known as ''Live Search gadget'' and ''Live Search Maps gadget''; both gadgets were removed from
Windows Live Gallery Windows Live Gallery (codenamed ''Customise'') was a part of Windows Live range of services. It was a center for gadgets, extensions and add-ons for Windows and Windows Live services. Windows Live Gallery was officially retired on October 1, 20 ...
due to possible security concerns. The Live Search Maps gadget was made available for download again on January 24, 2008 with the security concern addressed. However around the introduction of Bing in June 2009 both gadgets have been removed again for download from
Windows Live Gallery Windows Live Gallery (codenamed ''Customise'') was a part of Windows Live range of services. It was a center for gadgets, extensions and add-ons for Windows and Windows Live services. Windows Live Gallery was officially retired on October 1, 20 ...
.


Market share

Before the launch of Bing, the market share of Microsoft web search pages (MSN and Live search) had been small. By January 2011, Experian Hitwise show that Bing's market share had increased to 12.8% at the expense of Yahoo! and Google. In the same period, comScore's "2010 U.S. Digital Year in Review" report showed that "Bing was the big gainer in year-over-year search activity, picking up 29% more searches in 2010 than it did in 2009". '' The Wall Street Journal'' notes the 1% jump in share "appeared to come at the expense of rival Google Inc". In February 2011, Bing beat Yahoo! for the first time with 4.37% search share while Yahoo! received 3.93%. Counting core searches only, i.e., those where the user has an intent to interact with the search result, Bing had a market share of 14.54% in the second quarter of 2011 in the United States. The combined "Bing Powered" U.S. searches declined from 26.5% in 2011 to 25.9% in April 2012. By November 2015, its market share had declined further to 20.9%. As of October 2018, Bing is the third largest search engine in the US, with a query volume of 4.58%, behind Google (77%) and
Baidu Baidu, Inc. ( ; , meaning "hundred times") is a Chinese multinational technology company specializing in Internet-related services and products and artificial intelligence (AI), headquartered in Beijing's Haidian District. It is one of the la ...
(14.45%).
Yahoo! Search Yahoo! Search is a Yahoo! internet search provider that uses Microsoft's Bing search engine to power results, since 2009, apart from four years with Google until 2019. Originally, "Yahoo! Search" referred to a Yahoo!-provided interface that s ...
, which Bing largely powers, has 2.63%. UK advertising agencies point to a study by Microsoft's Regional Sales Director suggesting the demographic of Bing users is older people (who are less likely to change the default browser of Windows), and that this audience is wealthier and more likely to respond to advertisements. To counter EU accusations that it is trying to establish a market monopoly, in September 2021, Google's lawyers claimed that one of the most commonly searched words on Microsoft Bing was Google, which is a strong indication that Google is superior to Bing.


Powered by

In July 2009, Microsoft and Yahoo announced a deal in which Bing would power
Yahoo! Search Yahoo! Search is a Yahoo! internet search provider that uses Microsoft's Bing search engine to power results, since 2009, apart from four years with Google until 2019. Originally, "Yahoo! Search" referred to a Yahoo!-provided interface that s ...
. All Yahoo! Search global customers and partners made the transition by early 2012. The deal was altered in 2015, meaning Yahoo! was only required to use Bing for a "majority" of searches. DuckDuckGo uses multiple sources for its search engine, including Bing, since 2010.
Ecosia Ecosia is a search engine based in Berlin, Germany. Ecosia considers itself a social business, claiming to be CO2-negative, supports full financial transparency and protects the privacy of its users. Ecosia is B Lab-certified, meeting it ...
uses Bing to provide its search results since 2017.


Marketing and advertisements


Live Search

Since 2006, Microsoft had conducted a number of tie-ins and promotions for promoting Microsoft's search offerings. These include: *
Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology co ...
's A9 search service and the experimental Ms. Dewey interactive search site syndicated all search results from Microsoft's then search engine, Live Search. This tie-in started on May 1, 2006. *Search and Give – a promotional website launched on January 17, 2007 where all searches done from a special portal site would lead to a donation to the UNHCR's organization for refugee children, ninemillion.org. Reuters AlertNet reported in 2007 that the amount to be donated would be $0.01 per search, with a minimum of $100,000 and a maximum of $250,000 (equivalent to 25 million searches). According to the website the service was decommissioned on June 1, 2009, having donated over $500,000 to charity and schools. * Club Bing – a promotional website where users can win prizes by playing word games that generate search queries on Microsoft's then search service Live Search. This website began in April 2007 as Live Search Club. *Big Snap Search – a promotional website similar to Live Search Club. This website began in February 2008, but was discontinued shortly after. *Live Search SearchPerks! - a promotional website which allowed users to redeem tickets for prizes while using Microsoft's search engine. This website began on October 1, 2008 and was decommissioned on April 15, 2009.


Debut

Bing's debut featured an $80 to $100 million online, TV, print, and radio advertising campaign in the US. The advertisements do not mention other search engine competitors, such as Google and Yahoo!, directly by name; rather, they attempt to convince users to switch to Bing by focusing on Bing's search features and functionality. The ads claim that Bing does a better job countering "search overload".


"Decision engine"

Bing has been heavily advertised as a "decision engine", though thought by columnist David Berkowitz to be more closely related to a web portal.


Bing Rewards

Bing Rewards was a loyalty program launched by Microsoft in September 2010. It was similar to two earlier services, SearchPerks! and Bing Cashback, which were subsequently discontinued. Bing Rewards provided credits to users through regular Bing searches and special promotions. These credits were then redeemed for various products including electronics, gift cards, sweepstakes, and charitable donations. Initially, participants were required to download and use the Bing Bar for Internet Explorer in order to earn credits; but later the service was made to work with all desktop browsers. The Bing Rewards program was rebranded as "Microsoft Rewards" in 2016, at which point it was modified to only two levels, Level 1 and Level 2. Level 1 is similar to "Member", and Level 2 is similar to "Gold" of the previous Bing Rewards.


The Colbert Report

During the episode of '' The Colbert Report'' that aired on June 8, 2010, Stephen Colbert stated that Microsoft would donate $2,500 to help clean up the Gulf oil spill each time he mentioned the word "Bing" on air. Colbert mostly mentioned Bing in out-of-context situations, such as
Bing Crosby Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby Jr. (May 3, 1903 – October 14, 1977) was an American singer, musician and actor. The first multimedia star, he was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century worldwide. He was a ...
and Bing cherries. By the end of the show, Colbert had said the word 40 times, for a total donation of $100,000. Colbert poked fun at their rivalry with Google, stating "Bing is a great website for doing Internet searches. I know that, because I Googled it."


Search deals

Bing was added into the list of search engines available in
Opera browser Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...
from v10.6, but Google remained the default search engine.
Mozilla Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current an ...
made a deal with Microsoft to jointly release "Firefox with Bing", an edition of Firefox where Bing has replaced Google as the default search engine. The standard edition of Firefox has Google as its default search engine, but has included Bing in its list of search providers since Firefox version 4.0. In addition, Microsoft paid
Verizon Wireless Verizon is an American wireless network operator that previously operated as a separate division of Verizon Communications under the name Verizon Wireless. In a 2019 reorganization, Verizon moved the wireless products and services into the divi ...
US$550 million to use Bing as the default search provider on Verizon's BlackBerry and have Verizon "turn off" (via BlackBerry service books) the other search providers available. Users could still access other search engines via the mobile browser.


Bing It On

In 2012, a Bing marketing campaign asked the public which search engine they believed was better when its results were presented without branding, similar to the Pepsi Challenge in the 1970s. This poll was nicknamed "Bing It On". Microsoft presented a study of almost 1,000 people which showed that 57% of participants in such a test preferred Bing's results, with only 30% preferring Google.


Adult content

Bing censors results for "adult" search terms for some regions, including India, People's Republic of China, Germany and Arab countries where required by local laws. However, Bing allows users to change their country or region preference to somewhere without restrictions, such as the United States, United Kingdom or Republic of Ireland.


Criticism


Censorship

Microsoft has been criticized for censoring Bing search results to queries made in simplified Chinese characters which are used in mainland China. This is done to comply with the censorship requirements of the government in China. Microsoft has not indicated a willingness to stop censoring search results in simplified Chinese characters in the wake of Google's decision to do so. All simplified Chinese searches in Bing are censored regardless of the user's country. The English-language search results of Bing in China has been skewed to show more content from state-run media like Xinhua News Agency and '' China Daily''. On 23 January 2019, Bing was blocked in China. According to a source quoted by ''
The Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nikk ...
'', the order was from the Chinese government to block Bing for "illegal content". On 24 January, Bing was accessible again in China. Around 4 June 2021, the anniversary of the
1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre The Tiananmen Square protests, known in Chinese as the June Fourth Incident (), were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing during 1989. In what is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, or in Chinese the June Fourt ...
, Bing blocked image and video search results for the English term " Tank Man" in the US, UK, France, Germany, Singapore, Switzerland, and other countries. Microsoft responded that "This is due to an accidental human error". In December 2021, it was required by a "relevant government agency" to suspend its auto-suggest function in China for 30 days. The search engine became partially unavailable in mainland China from 16 December until its resumption on 18 December 2021. According to the company, a government agency in March 2022 required that it suspend auto-suggest function in China for seven days; Bing did not specify the reason. In May 2022, a report released by the
Citizen Lab The Citizen Lab is an interdisciplinary laboratory based at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, Canada. It was founded by Ronald Deibert in 2001. The laboratory studies information controls that impact the openness ...
of the University of Toronto found that Bing's autosuggestion system censored the names of Chinese Communist Party leaders, dissidents, and other persons considered politically sensitive in China in both Chinese and English, not only in China but also in United States and Canada.


Copyright-infringing content

On February 20, 2017, Bing agreed to a voluntary United Kingdom code of practice obligating it to demote links to copyright-infringing content in its search results.


Performance issues

Bing has been criticized for being slower to index websites than Google. It has also been criticized for not indexing some websites at all.


Allegedly copying Google's results

Bing has been criticized by competitor Google for utilizing user input via Internet Explorer, the Bing Toolbar, or Suggested Sites, to add results to Bing. After discovering in October 2010 that Bing appeared to be imitating Google's auto-correct results for a misspelling, despite not actually fixing the spelling of the term, Google set up a honeypot, configuring the Google search engine to return specific unrelated results for 100 nonsensical queries such as ''hiybbprqag''. Over the next couple of weeks, Google engineers entered the search term into Google, while using Microsoft Internet Explorer, with the Bing Toolbar installed and the optional Suggested Sites enabled. In 9 out of the 100 queries, Bing later started returning the same results as Google, despite the only apparent connection between the result and search term being that Google's results connected the two. Microsoft's response to this issue, coming from a company spokesperson, was: "We do not copy Google's results." Bing's Vice President, Harry Shum, later reiterated that the search result data Google claimed that Bing copied had in fact come from Bing's very own users. Shum wrote that "we use over 1,000 different signals and features in our ranking algorithm. A small piece of that is clickstream data we get from some of our customers, who opt into sharing anonymous data as they navigate the web in order to help us improve the experience for all users." Microsoft stated that Bing was not intended to be a duplicate of any existing search engines.


Child pornography

A study released in 2019 of Bing Image search showed that it both freely offered up images that had been tagged as illegal
child pornography Child pornography (also called CP, child sexual abuse material, CSAM, child porn, or kiddie porn) is pornography that unlawfully exploits children for sexual stimulation. It may be produced with the direct involvement or sexual assault of a ch ...
in national databases, as well as automatically suggesting via its auto-completion feature queries related to child pornography. This easy accessibility was considered particularly surprising since Microsoft pioneered PhotoDNA, the main technology used for tracking images reported as originating from child pornography. Additionally, some arrested child pornographers reported using Bing as their main search engine for new content. Microsoft vowed to fix the problem and assign additional staff to combat the issue after the report was released.


Privacy

France imposed the highest fine of 2022 to Microsoft for 60 Million Euros for privacy law violations using Bing cookies that prevented users rejecting those cookies.Microsoft fined $64 million by France over cookies used in Bing searches
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See also

* List of search engines by popularity *
Comparison of web search engines Web search engines are listed in tables below for comparison purposes. The first table lists the company behind the engine, volume and ad support and identifies the nature of the software being used as free software or proprietary software. The ...
*
List of search engines Search engines, including web search engines, selection-based search engines, metasearch engines, desktop search tools, and web portals and vertical market websites have a search facility for online databases. By content/topic General ...


References


Further reading

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External links

* {{Web search engines navbox Microsoft websites Multilingual websites Internet search engines Websites which mirror Wikipedia Internet properties established in 2009 2009 establishments in the United States Digital marketing companies of the United States