In an effort to increase Bing’s market share, Microsoft executives have revised the strategy for the company’s search engine, and have also announced a number of changes that have been made to its paid ad services.
Last week at the Bing Ads Next event in Redmond, Washington, the company suggested plans to shift the focus slightly away from search engine results pages (SERPs).
Microsoft’s corporate vice president, Rik van der Kooi, commented: “You will see us evolve Bing more and more as we understand people more completely, and it is not always going to be with a SERP, but it is going to be ubiquitous.”
Over the last 18 months or so, Bing has made a lot of effort to integrate itself with websites that are particularly popular among its users – such as Amazon, Facebook and Twitter. In June 2013, Apple announced that the upcoming iOS would come with Bing as the default search engine – not Google.
Bing’s director of search, Stefan Weitz, explained: “We think of Bing less and less as a destination portal. We’re trying to put search where users are. All the places people go today, we want to be. Ask how we’re going to grow market share, this is how. Bing is not a destination — we’re putting search where people are.”
Bing’s quest for more market share
Although Google’s position as the UK’s (and US’s) leading search engine is undeniable, Bing has recently made ground with regards to increasing its own market share and cemented itself as the country’s second-favourite.
Earlier this month it was revealed that Google’s share of the UK search engine market had slightly decreased in September, while Bing’s experienced a jump.
Despite this, Google still evidently has an overwhelming share of overall UK search, with 88.75 per cent in comparison to Bing’s 6.19 per cent.