SEO For Google Vs. Bing: How Different Are They?

Today started with a presentation from Janet Miller, CEO of Search Mojo, who gave some great actionable advice. Rand presented next with some correlation data followed by Q&A with Matt Cutts of Google and Sasi Parthasarathy of Microsoft Bing.

Janet Miller, Search Mojo Presentation notes:

Why worry about Bing?

• Similar user engagement to Google
• Strong pages/visit, bounce rate and time on site metrics with visits from Bing search
• Indexable content control

XML Sitemaps

Bing does not accept video or news sitemaps while Google does.

Submit sitemaps to Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Webmaster Center

Local Listings:  Google Places & Bing Listing

Geolocation search results for movie show times, snow reports and weather were examples of how Bing tells you where they are pulling the information from while Google does not.

Sitelinks differences: Show up for first result only; however, you can edit in Google Webmaster tools for Google. No way to currently edit Bing site links.

Bing backlinks & outbound links only gives you access to top 1,000 links. Helpful for new sites; not so much for older sites.

Shopping:

• Google Base feed is 100% free
• Bing shopping paid only (and cashback is going away)

Bing Opportunities:

• Social sharing in search results
• Shared URL is Bing URL, not to your content
• Must use Bing Facebook app for sharing (give permission on Facebook)
• Plays video in search result (only for Youtube videos)

Optimize Document Preview:

• H1 tag used if not the same as title tag
• First paragraph of content is usually snippet
• Contact information included if on page
• Disable document preview with a meta tag or robots.txt file