Google vs Bing : ranking factors
WARNING: If you are an SEO Geek… leave this post now. In fact… forgive me for offending your SEO Brain Cells with such an obvious post…
Google vs Bing: and How to Rank Better.
(a boring intro)
Bing is the latest search engine platform put out by Microsoft MSN or LIVE in their “difficult” search engine history. So far… Bing has really grown to take on a good number of followers when you compare it to its predecessors (let’s face is MSN use to suck big time).
When you log into Bing you can see that this program is trying to separate itself from Google. It makes the claim that it’s the first ‘decision’ engine to come down the pike, and to be honest Bing looks and feels “warm”… (like a Mac!)
So for people like me… obsessed with SEO, the question is, what does this mean for the future of SEO in regards to Bing and Google?
It was in early June 2009 that Microsoft released a statement that pretty much said that SEO is still SEO, and Bing didn’t want to change that at all.
The reason they say this is because even if the design is much different, the basics for getting ranked are pretty much the same as they have been. SEO is still all about making your pages as relevant as you can to what searchers are looking for.
Bing team also states that good content and website design is what will get you ranked the highest. There’s really not any noticeable difference in that attitude than with Google. So what applies to Google, applies to Bing too. So you can still use the same techniques and get ranked well on Bing… but obviously with more Google algorithm changes, the differences in ranking between bing and google are becoming more clear and evident.
One of Google’s brainchilds for ranking pages was the page rank algorithm (one of 200 factors). This evaluation tool is still very powerful, and can evaluate the “authority” and relevancy of any page just by making an overall calculation of the links on that page. But the fact of Google using these algorithms and the way their evaluations worked became known to the webmasters. From there, the webmasters began to use every trick at their disposal to get back links… ignoring that Pageran was just one basic parameter of the algorithm for ranking pages.
Bing tries to use different algorithms in its approach to the same goal.
And the goal is to get high quality results from searches.
But the market share shows Google still managing to maintain a very high quality and relevancy of results and users are not saying bye bye to Google in any time future.
So the war is on.
It seems that unless Bing or somebody else can come up with some sort of ‘magic formula’, then Google Search Engine monopoly will stay the same for some time to come.
Obviously it’s still a bit early to say that Bing will become the number two engine in the search engine world. They’re going to need to prove themselves by providing good relevant search results so their users won’t get turned off and go back to the old good big Google….
The good news for the Bing boys, is that they have already captured a very substantial crowd. The rest will be seen in time.
So if you plan on using Bing, then now is the time for find out how to optimize your site accordingly.
There are indeed many areas of SEO for that have a lot in common, regardless of the search engine you try to get ranked in. But Bing concentrates more on the areas that are different from Google, and places more emphasis on them. (I know , I know… let me explain this step by step)
“Just how do you optimize your website for Bing?”
Let’s start off by saying that there are a number of sources that say the MSN’s algorithm is more keyword emphasized than Google’s. (But that should not cause you to stuff more keywords into your fresh content 
Domain names:
Based on SEOmoz research Bing gives more relevance to the keyword in the domain name .
Example: if you want to rank “Gabriel is Sexy” … in Bing gabrielissexyindeed.com will have a bigger chance of ranking
The interesting thing is that Bing gives higher relevancy to keywords with hyphens than google… almost 3 times.
so in Bing gabriel-is-sexy-indeed will have AGAIN a higher change of ranking than in old Google.
Lenght of the domain name:
The Theory that Google seem to preffer short domain names vs long domain names is more relevant than in Bing.
bing seems to be OK with long domain names while for google the lenght of domain name seems to be a negative factor in ranking.
gabrielissexyindeedohyeah.com –> no good
sexygabriel.com –> good
Metatags:
Oh yes… I know what you are thinking (metatags are sooo 90′s!) … but they still need to be used.
It seems that one of the common factors of Bing SEO is that you ensure your metatags are descriptive, and that you’ve included your important keywords in that description. Bing seems to emphasize this more than Google.
However, you need to understand that meta tag are not being READ by Google anymore…. and it’s simply not revelant in any your SEO strategy. (unless metatagas are part of the secret 200 ingredients of Google Algorith and we don’t know it yet
Titles:
Again with Google and Bing.. the Title relevance is huge… and when talking about title we are talking about
<tittle>THIS TYPE OF TITLE </title>
It’s quite amazing that websites still use their company names in every single title… and wonder why they are not ranking for their desired keywords.
Regarding LINKS:
Links… links .. links… is all about links and is seems that Bing loves you more… when when your link out externally to relevant site. Based on Google famous Google Page Rank sculpturing … many webmasters are shyt shy from providing external links. The feeling of “lowering their page rank” is a risk they are not willing to take therefor external links have decreased from many sites…(Read Page Rank Sculpting).
Well, with Bing… as long as your external links are relevant, this should not pose a problem. If you believe your website is simply sending too many outbound links then you can consider to make use of the ‘no follow’ option for your outbound links.
This will help to ensure that no authority from your site gets passed to the outbound link, but again… this is a non-natural behaviour that Google seems to encourage webmasters not do to. (So bad if you do and bad if you don’t)
Regarding Content
Bing likes content and text very much in the same way as Google. The difference is that Bing likes the text more. So you should try and keep your text on each page to about 350 words. Most of your search engines don’t look at the amount of text as a factor, but Bing does. So be sure to add more text to get better Bing rankings.
Bing also puts emphasis on the age of the website. So if you plan on creating a new website, it would pay for you to purchase an old domain for Bing rankings. And Bing looks closely at your HTML coding, so be sure it is all validated. When you have close and paired HTML tags, the links shouldn’t be broken, and they should open on the correct pages. Having broken links on your site can cause the MSN bot to be unable to properly access your site. This will cause you to lose out on indexing and Bing won’t rank your site high in the SERPS.
If for some reason you’ve changed your webpage or site address, then make sure you use an adequate redirect. No matter if it’s a temporary redirect or a permanent one, you need to ensure you have the right one.
It’s standard for you to be sure that the MSN bot is authorized to crawl your site, so it’s important to use a robots.txt file. You should remember that a robots.txt file is the first place for any search engine bots to access your site.
You should also work on your ‘off-site’ optimization. This means getting lots of quality back links and using your keywords in the anchor text. Bing uses these back links like votes, same as Google.
Social media… oh yeah…
Social media has a huge role to play in getting Bing rankings.
So make sure you maintain a good presence on the popular social media sites… Facebook, Myspace, Twitter links seems to have certain relevance with Bing Ranking. Also as always… links from “authority” web 2 sites.. like Squidoo, Hubpages, and other sites like that.
Bing want’s to be hippie (so badly) so the alogorithm loves the social media, and they will give high rankings in the SERPS to sites that say actively involved there.
Social media is also climbing in importance as far as Google is concerned. So it really pays all around to stay involved.
So let’s recap what we’ve been over – SEO for Bing vs. SEO for Google:
(1). Bing places heavy emphasis on the domain age. If yours is new, then you may want to consider getting an older one for a higher rank. Bing takes how many years ago the domain was registered into account. So to put it simply, buy older domains if your interest is in ranking high with Bing.
(2). Again, remember that Bing likes Titles. Make sure to use your best keywords in your titles and create title tags. And always keep a connection between your title and your title description.
(3). With Google, amount of text means has certain relevancy, but with Bing it the relevancy seems to mean more to… Bing. So quantity means something to Bing. You should have text that is no less than 300 words for ranking with Bing. If you put plenty of text on your site, bing will take notice.
(4).Outbound links carry weight with Bing, but not so much to Google. So get as many of these as you can. As long as the back links are relevant, Bing will give you credit and your ranking will be higher. Again try to link in a natural way… pretend you are HUMAN and not a Google crawler/algorithm maniac…
(5).Make sure you have a URL that’s fixed, and is simple. When your URL is one that’s complex, it makes it hard to be indexed. Plus it’s hard for people to remember. So keep it simple when it comes to your URL.
(6).Site maps should always be included on your site for ranking with Bing, and this is due to their importance for indexing. It also adds easy navigation to your site.
(7).Be sure you submit your site map to www.bing.com/webmaster.
(8).Ensure that the content on your site matches your keywords. While quantity matters, so does quality. So always use relevant content that compliments your keywords.
(9). You must allow the MSN bot to crawl your site. So make sure they’re not on your prohibited list of web crawlers. Make use of a robots.txt file and manage your MSN bot and other crawlers as well.
(10). Do all of the above and you should have success getting ranked well with Bing (well… may be)
When you think about it, the four search engines that generally make the news, the charts, and capture the market share, are Google, Yahoo, Bing, and AOL.
Now, for those who aren’t aware of it, the Google results are what power AOL. And now with this deal between Yahoo and Microsoft, Bing will power the Yahoo search results. So it makes sense for you to focus your SEO efforts on the two engines that will control the reigns over their own search technologies, and who will be managing their algorithms. These two are Google and Bing.
From a market share perspective, according to U.S. statistics, Google will hold 70% while Bing holds 30%. Now that may breakdown a little differently elsewhere, but it still seems a bit foolish to ignore the second biggest player in the game.
Personally If google and my wife loves me : I’m happy.
Bing is still the cherry on top of the cake…
* I will try to update this long post that I wrote while being sick in bed. Please forgive any “grammar” mistakes… is part of the joys of writing in bed while suffering of fever ….
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Gabriel Machuret
I'm an SEO professional living in the South Coast of NSW - Australia. SEO is what I do... I'm not a web guy, or a webmaster, or a designer... I just do SEO ;) Love it. Enjoy it and I still have fun doing it.
10 / 16 / 2010 1:33 am
Kick ass article..
Let me honest and say it was a bit boring at the start as I am an SEO enthusiast. However past the intro there were some very interesting observations.
I am very curious about the domain age.I have done a set of experiments on the domain age as a factor and found some interesting results too. One of my domains is 11 year old and ranks quite nicely for various key terms than a few other companies who have more content than me.
I am yet to make peace with why Pretty permalinks are important. I know it is relevant to a user reading the article but from a search engine perspective it makes little sense.
Maybe you could shed some light on this.
Definately subscribing to your feeds.
Ajay´s last blog ..Comprehensive Guide – How To Get Your Listing On Google Local Business Center or Google Places
[Reply]
Gabriel Machuret Reply:
October 23rd, 2010 at 10:09 pm
Permalinks are still important in my point of view, remember the URL keyword helps to the whole ranking process… even the url name …
Regarding domain name age… well, I believe is not so much the age of the domain is more about the domain name already indexed by google. I will be making a post about domain name age and google trust in a few weeks. Stay tuned.
[Reply]
11 / 26 / 2010 5:48 am
Great post, I am becoming increasingly aware of Bing, as they continue to take market share I feel like I should start considering their own ranking factors in my websites too.
I like that they don’t penalise relevant outbound links. Google have taught the world not to share links…
alex´s last blog ..seo leicester
[Reply]
Gabriel Machuret Reply:
November 27th, 2010 at 5:30 am
Hey Alex… thanks for stopping by (A long way from the UK!) Google stills pays my Mortage… but I’m pretty sure bing has also an unlimited buget to grow… so you never know
[Reply]