Also See this further Bing SEO update. More news on how Bing is ranking sites.
Well I am sure we’re all just about sick and tired of hearing about Bing? Have we all given it a whirl already? 
Despite the widespread attention I thought I would do a post on it anyway but as always from a 100% SEO point of view. What I really want to do with this post is look at what makes a site rank No.1 on Bing in comparison to Google? What SEO techniques are going to get you exposure on Bing that won’t necessarily do the same for you on Google.
In true SEO Wizz style I picked a keyword and took a look at the top ranking sites on Bing and Google.
“seo services” was the keyword, I figured we may as well keep it relevant plus this is a highly competitive keyword, with a top ppc price of £3.77, not overly high but competitive enough for our purposes.
Ok, we put together the following figues, take a look over them we’ll try to explore them a little.
The two sites I looked at are as follows:-
Whitehatmedia – ranked 1 on Bing
and
Smart Traffic – ranked 1 on google
Right let’s break this down a little.
On Page Factors
The Google site is slightly better optimised on page but in my opinion the differences are not enough to suggest anything major. Maybe Google takes into accounut on page optimisation more than the new bing search engine.
Every time I do these comparisons the top Google sites always seem to implement the meta keywords, yet they don’t use them to determine rankings anymore, right? I’d keep using them anyway, what’s the harm.
Off Page Factors
This is where we see clear differences between the 2 sites.
The Google No.1 has a massive link popularity and a better link diversity. The Google site even enjoys a more focused anchor distribution.
It’s nice to see the younger domain doing better on Google, half the age of the site on Bing
Linking Pages
The pages that link to a site have always played a major role when ranking for keywords. On Google the idea is that you should acquire links from pages that are as relevant as possible.
This part of the table shows that the Google site has a higher percentage of links from pages with the keyword in the body, however the bing site has more links from pages with the keyword in the title tag. Is this the key to better Bing rankings?? Could be.
Looking down the table it is quite clear to see what Google focuses on and why sites rank higher on Google. Link popularity, diversity, anchor distribution. On the other hand it is quite interesting to note that the site with the higher PageRank does better on Bing.
So top tips from SEO Wizz…..
If you want to rank higher on Bing:-
- Make your domain age increase
- Try to acquire links from pages with your keywords in the title tag
To be fair both of these tips would help your Google campaign but it seems that more emphasis is put on these factors by Bing.
Another thing I noticed was that both sites have implemented heavy article marketing, so keep writing and distributing that keyword focused content, it works.
More research needed for it to be conclusive.
Thanks
Tim
Read codesuckers SEO blog for more info on Bing SEO.
Line BreakAuthor: Tim (293 Articles)
Tim Grice is the owner and editor of SEO wizz and has been involved in the search engine marketing industry for over 7 years. He has worked with multiple businesses across many verticals, creating and implementing search marketing strategies for companies in the UK, US and across Europe. Tim is also the Head of Search at Branded3, an SEO agency in Leeds.
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i seem to do quite well with google witch i suppose is good but they own quite a bit of the market i dont think as to now i have had any searches form bing a couple off yahoo but no bing is my site just not old enuff its about 2 year old but i am looking at trying to get some trafic off bing as well
Based on my experience the under-lying algorithm is different ie Bing and Google. With a particular keyword, one site was #1 on Bing but on #17 on Google.
Hey, very informative and interesting. Looks like you put a lot of effort and research into it. Keep up the good work!!
Thanks for that information, been a great basis for starting my research with catering for Bing as well as Google. Cheers
Even though Bing registers that my site exists I’ve checked; I don’t get any traffic from it, I’ll take note from this info though and let you know if I can make a difference to traffic
I usually get better rankings on bing than google. I think it is even easier after googles “panda” update. Now I have some keywords no. 1. in bing but no. 16 in google. I find it very strange that there are such differences. The site is well optimized and the domain is quite old. Back links comes from high pr blogs, forums og wen directories.
Long time to read any article regarding to Bind seo.
Thanks for it.
Bing looks at exact match domains… Check out the difference between results for the keyword “medigap insurance”.
Interesting post! It seems to me that domain age is a huge factor for Bing. We host a couple of brand new shops that rank very high in Google, but sometimes don’t even appear in Bing.
Nice post. I am still not clear how to optimize keywords only for Bing? Is there any way to do this?
I say don’t perform SEO for any search engine specifically; perform SEO for your website. All of the known factors for on-page and off-page optimization should help you with Bing, Yahoo and Google.
Until now, I coudn’t figure out why Bing ranked pages the way it does. But, your assessment seems to make sense.
Sites that I have SEO’d that rank well in Google don’t seem to do as well in Bing (nowhere close). Now it is time to experiment
10x a lot… been wondering whats the difference
Great test compering those 2
Cheers, Joshua
I am no.1 for my key term in google but nowhere to be seen on bing!
great post, it would be interesting to see the comparisons now and see how the algorithms have changed for both search engines
Great comparison. I was wondering how to rank better on Bing…
great article. but no1 is still high quality content.
Our website do much better on google, but it’s hard for us to rank better on bing. Maybe it’s the reason as you say.
Thanks for the site by site comparison. I’m sure it would be different now after the panda update. I have a few sites that are have been negatively affected due to panda. And they are still coming up with newer versions. I was looking into SEO for Bing but it looks like I am not going to be getting rankings there unless I purchase an aged domain. Thanks for the great info, I will be looking back for a new comparison.
Excellent Article .. I have a few sites that are have been negatively affected due to panda. And they are still coming up with newer versions.
I am having so much trouble getting my site http://www.60daysandnights.com to get crawled by bing/yahoo i use cludflare and it says that neither have crawled a single page can anyone tell me what i am doing wrong
You need to keep link building, however your site does seem to have a lot of pop ups, this could be causing issues.
I do well with Google (page 1 from almost all my keywords identified) but cannot break in with Bing to save my life. For a 6 month old site is there a rule of thumb of how long it takes? I am on page 1 of Google within minutes of my post and it sticks.
I just wondering how are you page one within minutes of your post. Are you in a super nich industry
Many of my graphic design site pages appear in either the first or second page in google for specific searches, yet appear in the 3rd and 4th pages in Bing and Yahoo. This is very strange to me because my old website did worse in google than Bing or Yahoo and I’m basically blogging about the same subject matter, and following the same seo principles I was then. If page age was such a contributing factor, then why was I able to rank so much better before I wonder.
Bing is a difficult one to gage, most of the testing we have done shows that Bing takes a lot longer to react to good SEO practices, they seem to value links based on relevance, unfortunately this can be easily manipulated using keyword rich domains and pages to develop links from.
Hi Tim
Other than with time (which we can’t control) , how does our site gain ‘aged’ domain authority?
Trust or Authority is probably the most difficult element to achieve, you need to get links from the right sources within your industry. You may have a lot of anchor text links from all kinds of sources but unless you have links from those long established authority sites its difficult to maintain rankings. So rather than thinking in terms of ‘how long has my domain been registered’, think
> Which sites are relevant to my niche
> Which speak for the industry
> How long have they been around
> Who publishes the info
Then you need to try and get links from these sites. This will help to build the trust of your site.
Hi Tim,
If you type on Google do you believe it will show the same for mine I am from India? If you mention any case study on which behalf you justify your data accuracy. In that case you need to mention at-least your country where you typed particular keyword. As per my understanding we can’t get the same results on Google from different countries. For that we have to add &gl=us or uk as you want to accurate results after your search URL.
As I know smart-traffic has targeted UK and it is not in top 10 with any high competitive keywords on USA. For instance see on Google.com (USA search) SEO Company and SEO Services etc.
Regards
Faisal Kaleem
Hi Faisal,
This was a UK based test, and is a little dated now. I still don’t see a definitive way of optimising for Bing out side of how you go about optimising for Google.
Hi ,I think domain age won’t help to index better in bing because I have lot of examples in which age of domains won’t work,ie domain with a lesser age gets top position than a old domain
it is easier to rank in Bing than Google but there is not eanogh traffic from bing.
search for outdoor furniture very competitive Key Terms you will find Modani.com
Bing is more in to multimedia and recreational stuff, google has developed several business tools and platforms, you can use so many tools, specially in the US, too bad they implement these only for the big countries, they should start everything in the same time… Like google checkout, merchant place, bing maps,yahoo local businesses, etc…
I’m 9th on google vs 27th on bing for a keyword. The domain age is definately a big factor for bing but it’s not clear what else has an effect …
Thanks for the article, not know how to optimize it for Bing, very good advice
I would love to see you do this comparison again, obviously this comparison is grossly out of date, especially with Googles Panda introduced last year and the Penguin last month. I might even look at a few keywords myself.
If you do re-do the test, please drop me a line
There is much difference in algorithm of both search engines. The requirements needed for ranking in Google and Bing is different . Google Gives Importance to Site Content and quality links where as Bing gives importance to user friendly sites .
I cannot find http://www.medical-specialists.co.uk through Bing whatsoever, yet do through Google? Can anyone point out the major differences with Bing and Google please?
I think this is the greatest example of Google and Bing difference.
Hi All,
I have Great Rankings at Bing and Yahoo but google is too slow to index and rank us can anyone help if u check the backlinks its aorund 2000+ still goin on but we are not there on google for 100 positions except 1 keyword bentley designs furniture. please let me knw the better ways to rank first for most of the keywords on google.
As far as on page is concerned we have worked very hard and completed in 6 months the on page seo work and still few things are on all parameters have been checked as far as onpage is concerned a bit worried abt rankings due to offpage competition as the industry is very very competitive. please need all the advise and help…!
Pretty nice post. I just stumbled upon your blog and wished to say that I have really enjoyed
surfing around your blog posts. In any case I’ll be subscribing to your feed and I hope you write again soon!
Great article. Thanks for it!
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