Also See this further Bing SEO update. More news on how Bing is ranking sites.
Well I am sure were all just about sick and tired of hearing about Bing? Have we all given it a whirl already? 
Despite the widespread attention I though 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 well 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.
Author: Tim (224 Articles)
Tim Grice is the owner and editor of SEO wizz and has been involved in the search engine marketing industry for nearly 7 years. Tim currently heads the Search Team at Branded3 Search, one of the biggest Digital Marketing companies in the UK working with major brands across Europe and the US.
{ 66 comments… read them below or add one }
have you try to do comparison for two different keywords? and second thing i would love to know which tool you use to calculate all onpage and ofpage SEO points
@Tahir,
I have done this test on three different keywords and all show a preference towards the ‘older’ domain. I may publish the rest at a later date. I use SEO Elite and Web CEO to get my statistics however Linkscape at SEOmoz is also a great tool.
I went to Google and type in the main keyword for my potato recipes site, “Potato Recipes”. I came up number 2.
I went to Bing and typed in the same keyword, “Potato Recipes”. I came up number 2 again.
I’m still a very big believer that there are many helpful ways to obtain a high ranking in “any” search engine, but the number one best way is through anchored backlinks.
Another informative and helpful post….Thanks
@potatochef
If you optimise for Google you’ll generally do pretty well in most of the major search engines, however I have to say for competitive terms there are some pretty big differences in results, with yahoo putting a great deal of emphasis on the domain name.
I love Bing! For my new site, I am ranking very high for words such as “hate ex” and “I hate my ex”.
P.S. you should check it out and give me feedback
Keep me updated with the Bing research. Oh and as for domain age, I don’t think that is a big factor for Bing as my site is brand new.
I have only tested 3 keywords with bing so it could do with a little more indepth analysis, the domain age is maybe only for mega competitive keywords.
I’ll check your site out, how many do you have??? Are you trying to build a blogging empire?
haha 2 blogs and 1 micro-blog for the general audience
Keep me updated with the Bing research. Bing looks good to me.
I’ve been trying to find Bing SEO information for awhile. Thanks for the down and dirty comparison.
Try the keyword phrase Minneapolis Lawyers in Bing. Most of the results are Law marketing firms not even attorneys. Leading Minnesota law firms like Meshbesher & Spence are not in the top ten. It’s a disappointment!
@Lisa
I’ve noticed a few sloppy results in Bing most of them relating to ‘freshness’, it is a little disappointing but let’s give them a chance to clean it up a little. I’m not going to moan too much as they sent me a few hundred visitors today
As the MD of White Hat Media and owners of ‘The Bing’ site’ I’d like to say that I found your post fascinating but it’s worth giving you a little history on this one. Up until about six weeks ago we were always top for the phrase “SEO Services” then found ourselves topped by Smart Traffic. We’d held the position for over a year including with the coveted sub link returns.
We looked carefully at the reasons we’d moved to second spot and in our opinion it’s mostly about In-bound links ie IBLs. So we upped our link-building activity and regained top spot (when it dropped we were still in second position). No surprises there then. Sure enough before long we were back in top spot and breathed a sigh of relief.
Then I can only assume that Smart Traffic did the same thing and again took poll position. We again responded and again took top position back. And so it has gone for the last six weeks or so.
I think you’re right in looking at the subtleties and we are doing the same. I agree with your comments about keyword metatags and ST have done well to gain as many links as they have in such a relatively small amount of time. Our link building and promotional team are usually full on working for clients, which sometimes means less internal work but I would think this is the case with many agencies.
The points you raise in your section Linking Pages are in my opinion spot on so I guess it’s back to more good link building if we want to regain top spot. I have a great deal of respect for other agencies who know what they’re doing and I’m sure that the competitiveness between us and ST as well as other good SEO agencies is healthy.
With so much going on in the sector at the moment there are ever increasing opportunities for companies who can provide a good solid service. And of course as you say more research needed.
At White Hat Media we’re obsessive and driven about SEO and achieving top positions for ourselves and our clients and I suppose the old adage ‘if you don’t like the heat, get out of the kitchen’ applies. We love the heat and will definitely be staying in the kitchen.
Jeremy,
Thanks very much for the insight.
I knew both sites would be implementing aggressive SEO strategies thats why I picked your keywords as a comparison. It’s interesting to note your ongoing struggle with Smart Traffic, will a newbie SEO company ever be able to compete? So much time and work on your side.
As you say it really does seem to be all in the links, something we noticed with clients recently is that Google seems to be putting more emphasis on link diversity, If I were starting a link campaign now I would be looking to gain links from as many domains as possible, obviously keeping relevancy in mind. We have the same problem when dealing with internal SEO, as our client base as grown and with us being a small team it’s difficult to source time to internal matters. This is something were going to have to do this summer in order to hit our rank targets.
Thanks for the comment.
Tim, wow that was a very rapid response. Clearly another who is thinking and writing about SEO at week-ends as well : )
For newbie agencies or for that matter newbie SEO campaigns, I’d recommend looking for the easier targets initially. There will always be some that can be identified with good research but for campaigns where you’re going up against sites that have been around for years with thousands of IBLs, it can be tough.
By evolving target key phrases it’s possible for most companies to gain some good positions and so good SEO traffic. We’ve found sectors to be careful of and manage client expectations with are travel, financial services, property, internet services (eg hosting) and some electronic goods. There are others but for many of these it’s necessary to have a very strong link building strategy and of course patience.
There’s also of course SEO and related phrases where the toughest competition can be found but with the growth of other related areas such as paid search and social media it’s a busy sector and best of all fun and fascinating.
@Jeremy,
Ye weekends are the only time I get to spend optimising my own site
Your right to bring up the ‘patience’ word because thats what SEO is really all about, patience and consistency. The first three months of this site I targeted longtail variations, that helped me gain authority for some of the more competitive phrases I am targeting, progress is good and I hope by the end of the year to have some high traffic first page listings.
Thanks for the quick shout about the feed, I’ll look into it and email you back.
Very interesting table.
hum, i heard too much about bing too, and i studied the difference between bing and google on the seo side too ;o)
i found another tip about the keywords in the urls. bing gives a lot more importance to keywords in urls. check my stats about keywords in urls
197000 backlink for the google site! not suprising since google was actually founded on this principle, backlinks popularity, when altavista or yahoo where not taking them into account.
thanks for sharing
Hacene
@seo china,
Thanks for sharing the research. It’s funny you should mention the “keywords in the url” discovery. I did a little research on yahoo about 2 months ago which showed that, for competitive keywords, yahoo was favouring optimised url’s. For example “search engine optimisation” keyword search brought up 10 sites on yahoo’s front page, 8 of which used the keyword in the url and all relied less on back links.
I’ve been trying to work out recently who I think Bing are copying Google or Yahoo, and even though there are similarities between both, I personally think Bing is mor of a “yahoo” engine, which will leave Google dominating.
First off, great article, and it was clearly, very well written. You did a wonderful job with the research as well. I think it is almost funny that the entire premise of Page Rank is used more on Bing.com then Google. Google should be using the page rank system much more mainly because of the value of the website.
I did a similar test as your did. And the results are actually humorous
if you search the term Website Grader on Bing, website.grader.com shows up. (This is Hubspots free grading tool) first.
If you do the same search again Website Grader in Google, a blog article about website.grader.com appears to be on top.
Page ranking system has its flaws too though. It basically gives newer sites no chance of getting to the top. Also on Bing it seems even puts multiple links of the same site under one search. Bing may be too dependent on page rank.
It is kind of funny because the Bing commercials are quite right. Google has been so bogged down with sites, that I think Google itself is just one massive directory of sites, not even relevant to searches anymore. (Of course depends on the search). Granted Google is still the King of Search and they do a great job keeping the spam out.
I believe personally that Bing is better based on the research I have done myself and the relevance of what I have been looking for. Keep in mind this is purely based on performance of search and not SEO. I tried doing common searches which I do daily maybe looking for a nice market place in Chicago or looking for a bike to buy somewhere specific. Once I find the specific site in Google, I do then do the same search in Bing. I have done 10 searches like this; 9 out of 10 times I find the site I am looking for, placed better on Bing then Google. One of which was a 50 position difference.
In conclusion there is a LOT of fixes Bing needs to make before they are on the same playing field as Google. Most noticeably is descriptions not showing up at all, maps section is slow to update and can take a month before you get your PIN to add your business. Essentially if Bing continues to grow, SEO’s consultants / companies everywhere will have their hands tied. There is such a difference in placement and SERPs in Bing and Google I don’t know where to start. Luckily however I have a head start
@Matt,
Thanks for the comment and the insight. I’m not too sure about Bing, the results are relevant but I found they lack on freshness, news articles tend to update the same day on Google, whereas were waiting a week or two on Bing. Even if Bing becomes more effective it will have a huge job catching the Google monster, however early traffic sign for my site at least have been encouraging, about 15% of my search traffic now comes from Bing. I’ll be keeping a close eye on it for potential sources of traffic, but at the moment it’s simply looking like a good Google copy, but you never know.
This is excellent and will be much needed by people, from the sounds of it, its not that far from Google’s policy. can i just add one thing is that to get the right description on the SERP when it comes up you need to put a meta tag, other wise it comes from DMOZ. see here http://www.impactmedialtd.co.uk/blog/search-engine-optimisation-seo/seo-resources/bing-using-dmoz-description/.
Sorry if this comes across as spam, i don’t mean it to, just that its relevent
@colin,
Thanks for the comment. I had read that Bing were using DMOZ, but my site is on bing and is not listed in dmoz, Bing seems to define the description the same way Google does when no meta tag is present. I have looked at Bing since and it does seem like a good Google copy but I have seen nothing to suggest a switch in search powers.
Great and well written article. Thanks for the comparison and deep study done.
@Pauchuri,
No problem, thanks fro dropping in
Do you have any info about Bing’s use of nofollow/dofollow links?
@amy,
I don’t as yet, but I am setting up a few tests with the no follow so watch this space
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your light support for keywords. What harm indeed! None says I and potential use in the fully emerged Semantic Web that we now inhabit. As with Jessica Rabbit, keyword metadata isn’t bad. It was just drawn that way (early on).
Is there any idea if Bing has some OOP ? Does it like strong sitewide links and does it work to push keywords like it used to work in Google ?
thanks!
HIi Nevalex,
As far as I have seen Bing is pretty much a good copy of Google, it seems to put a little more emphasis on domain age or authority, but apart form that it is pretty much the same. I’m not sure about the OOP, I don’t know many that use that language.
Hey Tim,
thanks for reply!
OOP stands for over optimization penalty. It seems to me that Bing now is Google 5-6 years ago, with less filters and other crazy stuff, do you think ? or Im just dreaming
lol
@Nevalex,
Sorry I thought you were making reference to object orientation programming, whoops. The over optimisation issue is an interesting one though. I don’t think for one second meta stuffing or title stuffing is going to do you any favours, however I had some interesting data surrounding anchor text. It seems Bing doesn’t mind if you have a high percentage of identical anchors, Google will slap you for making your anchor text too obvious, but Bing doesn’t seem to pick up on it quite the same.
Thanks for asking the question, it’s actually given me an idea for an interesting study, saying that I am starting to lose interest with Bing, even though the new Bing/Yahoo partnership may prove interesting.
Thanks again.
Interesting…
I was planning to pay more attention to Bing and getting some nice traffic from it as Im willing to close up some of my Google campaigns and switch to bing/yahoo (I’m talking about organic seo, not PPC). Im about to dig in to it and study how to seo at Bing, so Im trying to pile all pieces together…
@Nevalex,
I received a little traffic from Bing when it first launched, however 80% of it has now dried up and my keyword rankings haven’t changed. I am skeptical about the hit Bing is going to have, as I say it will be interesting to see how the partnership unfolds over the next couple years. 95% of my traffic still comes from Google so thats where my efforts will be going.
Let me know how your research goes into Bing, it will make interesting reading.
ok
hope bing wont let down my expectations…
lol
I written an important Bing SEO technique here http://web-search-techniques.blogspot.com/2009/08/bing-seo-technique-bing-bug.html
@ravi,
Thanks for sharing
Good informative article for readers. Thanks for the comparison.
Great article on Bing SEO and how it differs from Google. One main point is not mentioned: Reducing SERP bounces. This is probably the most important on page SEO factor and you can read more on this in my article on SEO for Bing. Please let me know what you think.
HP Jeschke
@Jeschke
I don’t agree with the bounce rate factor, never known it have any effect on ranking. The big questions to ask there is how would Google/Bing track visitors without breaking privacy laws and what about sites that provide what the visitor needs on 1 page.
Just don’t buy it
Thanks for doing some research on Bing. I have a political blog that is only 3 months old. I rank very high on Bing for most of my posts, yet on Google I am usually nowhere to be found. Bing will sldo have my posts in their search results within a half hour of me posting and it will usually be in the top 5 results. Google usually takes an hour or more and my blog posts will be on page 20 or something. Why do you think there is such a difference?
Hi Eric,
Souunds very interesting and when I get some time I would like to look into to see why the differences may be occuring. It’s interesting that Bing seems to be jumping on posts quicker and indexing quicker but as to the ranking difference I am not really sure. As I say when I get chance I will take a look and publish the results on the blog.
Thanks for highlighting it.
WE all know that.
Backlinks are the best – they are indexed by all search engines as long as the page you link from is indexed. You can do it through blog commenting, profile links or buying reviews
I can’t rank on Bing at all. My ranks on Google and Yahoo are pretty good. I’m not even ranked. Backlink building and pinging isn’t working.
@Mass PPV,
I did this research a while ago and have noticed since Bing puts quite a bit of importance on the URL and domain age. Plus make sure you are building links from diverse domains instead of getting your links from all the same places.
Interesting post. I recently launched a site in the uk (www.thestonemasonrycompany.co.uk) and am aiming for high rankings on the term “stone staircase”. Admittedly the site has only been live for 3 months but I think I have done a good job of on-site SEO. For my chosen phrase the site is not in the first few pages on Google, yet on Bing I rank #1
As I have not yet had chance to build many quality back links, it is the only explanation I can come up with. Let me know what you think!
@pete,
Yes Google is all about backlinks where as bing seems to put a lot of emphasis on keyword rich URL’s and body content. Ranking no 1 on bing is great but do you see traffci from it? Competition is pretty low on the keyword and 3 months worth of strong link building should see you onto the first page of Google.
About 5% of my traffic seems to come from Bing. I have always struggled with getting DMOZ backlinks but on this occasion I’ve got it. The client is expecting it to take another 3 months until he starts seeing real results so it gives me some time to go off and appease Google’s need for those qualitative and quantative backlinks.
Hi Pete,
Sounds like a plan. Google is built on link quality and quantity, just don’t forget to add some keyword targeted anchors in there.
Heavy article marketing is the key. It has help me to rank on Google with a very competitive term
This post is very informative about bing. Personally, I think it is the site age who help most for a good ranking on bing. I use WordPress with all the seo bell and whistle and I’m not even listed on bing with my URL without the dash. I’ll continue to read your post for more information.
Thanks a lot, you do a good work!
I recently noticed that bing and Google had recently updated their algorithm for a specific keyphrase.
I noticed this when performing SEO for a companies website which was poorly ranked on Google but rank 1 on bing for its target keyphrase, all of a sudden the site was page 1 on google from page 5 and bing dropped from page 1 position 1 to page 7. Absolutely no SEO was done during this time so I figured that both search engines changed their algorithms. btw Yahoo displayed its results with no change.
Hi Dolph,
I have tried my hand at trying to figure out bing on some personal sites, the outcome is almost always unpredictable. One site with no links and no SEO ranks 3rd yet another site targetting the exact same key phrase struggles 4 pages back. I don’t get bing really and to be honest there is no point until it’s search share grows significantly.
As I’ve noticed, Google really does ‘give a chance’ to younger websites.
The funny thing here really is that the website with higher Google PageRank ranks higher on Bing lol.
I guess that just confirms the saying ‘PageRank is vanity, ranking is sanity’
Hi Ivan,
That’s right I have lost count of the amount of times I have had this debate with people. Toolbar pagerank is almost meaningless, however I do have to admit to liking that solid green above my site
One site with no links and no SEO ranks 3rd yet another site targetting the exact same key phrase struggles 4 pages back. I don’t get bing really and to be honest there is no point until it’s search share grows significantly.
Hi Jakman,
Couldn’t agree with you more. Bing seems to be full of inconsistencies whilst it’s finding it’s feet in the world of search, however the facebook/Bing connection could prove a challenge to Google’s dominance, guess we’ll just have to watch this space.
I’m not in favor to Bing – it doesn’t even display my blog at all, only my Twitter account (which indeed, is older). I’ve had my blog for over 3 months though you’d think that when specifically typing in the domain you’d get at least 1 result? Seems that you are right when you say the age of the domain is important.. which is a pity, I prefer Google as they seem to give younger websites a chance as well. Anyway good insight in this article so thanks for writing it
Hi Sophie,
Bing seems to be working on a first come first serve basis. You write about something first and you are the authority. This is short sighted and leaves webmasters and business owners with little confidence in optimising for it. Google is king at least for the foreseeable future and I wouldn’t bother optimising for any other search engine at the minute.
Bing SEO? i don’t think it worth much..i mean Google market is huge
I have eight sites around the Wyoming governor race. I do not have one single site found on Bing. I have page one on at least one site with Google, depending on the specific keyword. All my sites are 3 months old or less.
I “own” Yahoo.
Only one site that is relevant to the actual election is ranked on Bing. That site is a little over a year old.
This is a really good info. Today i come to know the difference between Bing and Google Algorithm. But most people optimize their websites for Google.
I have a questions for you. How does the ranking affect local listings? We come up first on yahoo and google but we are 7th on bing but when you go into the local listing we are the sponsored link from yellowpages. I am searching ottawa ks dentist. I would like that our URL being that would help but it is not. When I look at the statics in the bing webmasters tools I see that our page rank is five, so why are we not higher.
Any advice you might have would be greatly appreciated. THANKS!!!!
Hi Melissa,
Even though I haven’t done any research into local rankings I have found that bing prefers keyword rich domains and places a lot of weight on anchor text. Have you looked at your competitors to see how they compare in terms of anchored backlinks? The PageRank is never a good indication of rank, if you want to increase your position keep it simple and get as many targeted anchor text from as many different domains as possible.
That’s the thing. We are the only dentist in our town that has a website. We have are the only verified site and we are the only one with two five star reviews! I just can’t figure it out. Everything I know on who to improve our webpage listing is not working to get our local listing improved.
Hi Melissa,
The way Google local works is by using local references as indicators of popularity. Do you have many links from local businesses? Directories? Other websites and businesses within your geographic location? This is how Google works so might as well try it with Bing.
I was doing really, really well in google (up until yesterday). However, I don’t even show up at all in Bing. I have tons of great content on my site, and lots of relevant links pointing to my site. I guess it’s simply because I’m not old enough for Bing.
When it comes to Bing there seems to clear patterns when it comes to Bing, keywords in the URL, lot’s of anchor text and a matured domain seem to be the biggest drivers. However until Bing become more prominent in the search market place there is no need to worry about it
Google is most popular search engine but we should not forget Bing as its popularity is increasing day by day. So this type of comparison is very important factor.
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