Bing Gets Major Search Update to its Knowledge Graph, Satori

Bing announced via their blog last week that they updated their knowledge graph, Satori, which provides users with a lot more information in the search engine results pages, much like Google does. The new updated information will show up in the “Snapshot” section, which Bing launched in March. It presents the information in the middle column of search results.

Here are some of the main updates that Bing made to its search engine, which it reports will help users find what they are looking for faster, based on their search.

Education

When users search for online university classes, Bing will show popular classes from Ivy League and other top universities directly in the search engine result pages (SERPs). Users can also search for information on colleges and universities, and Bing will rank them and give a brief snippet of information.

Besides students looking for higher education information, Bing will show TED talks from people you are searching for, which applicable.

Science and Research

Bing now shows more information in the search result snapshot pane for the following:

• Famous speeches and national anthems audio clips when users search by name or famous person name
• Scientific theories
• Historic events that are searched by name, which includes a summary, data, and high-quality relevant links
• Related people that are relevant to users’ search, and Bing also explains why they are shown as relevant search results. For example, when searching for John F. Kennedy, the snapshot box shows his spouse (and marriage dates), children, siblings, and his Vice President while he was in office. All these names are clickable and go to informational pages (such as Wikipedia), which is where Bing (and Google) pulls its summaries and snapshot photos from.
• Animal searches will show subspecies to help narrow down what the user is searching for
• “Ask Bing” answers users’ questions when they use natural language, such as “When is Thanksgiving in 2014?” or “What is 33 x 45?”

App and Software Informations

App and software download queries will produce a description and links to reputable download sources that are well-known and trusted.

These changes, which are effective immediately, certainly help make Bing more user-friendly and helps make it more competitive with Google, which still owns the majority of all searches in the United States: about 70%, according to comScore’s latest report for November 2013. Bing currently has an 18.1% search share.

Bing will utilize this new update to also provide better results for Cortana, which is the personal assistant for Windows phones that allows users to search by voice recognition (much like Google Now and Apple’s Siri).

Because this update is making Bing easier to use, search marketers should take note of the changes and adapt their content strategy accordingly. Make crucial information about companies, people, and businesses easy to find on all website pages, for both users and search engines. In addition, because search engines are placing more of an emphasis on natural language search, marketers should as well. Try using natural language queries in content headers and answers to help better optimize it for SERPs.