When we talk about SEO and search engine ranking, the automatic assumption is that we’re talking about Google. While it’s certainly true that Google is the most important and influential search engine at the moment, and possibly for the foreseeable future, it’s also important to remember that Google has other things besides search in its sights. As Google integrates other features under the umbrella of its brand name, other search engines with more of a single-minded focus may be stepping into the spotlight, and if you’re thinking about the future of your SEO strategy, you might want to keep other search engines in mind.
There was a time, perhaps even recently, that SEO experts would laugh if you suggested you might want to optimize a site for Bing ranking, but they’re not laughing anymore. Bing came out of beta a few weeks ago, and although it is not going to come anywhere near the market share of Google anytime soon, Microsoft has released a statement saying that they are prepared to inject the necessary funds into assuring that the public sees what Bing has to offer as an alternative to Google.
Whereas Google is heading toward a more social experience for its users with features like social circle testimonials, Bing is aiming to be more task-oriented than people-oriented. Google’s algorithm is constantly being modified to give increasing weight to results from social media sources, but Bing’s algorithm has evolved to give priority to location-based authoritative sources. In other words, if you’re conducting a search from Australia, Google will be more likely to bump up results from people in your Google+ circle, whereas Bing will assume you want results that are local to your area, from official sources.
As Google keeps fine-tuning how it ranks search results, this is leaving open niches where other search engines can step in and do similarly focused searches with different priorities. Over time, this could lead to a situation where Google is the search engine people turn to for, say, product reviews, but Bing is the one they try for finding a local business, and so forth. Even though that sort of evolution will take time, and may even go a completely different direction, it certainly makes sense to keep other search engines in mind when forming a comprehensive and forward-thinking SEO strategy.
