Bing emulates Google Places in web search

[sitetruth]

Bing seems to have emulated what Google did last week - mix their "places" search into their web search.

Searches tried:

"London hotels" - 4 ads at top, a map block with hotels marked, 3 organic results, a second map block, a Bing Travel block, and finally 7 more organic results. The usual ad column appears at the right.

"DVD player" - 4 ads at top, a "Find product" block with pictures, three organic results, a "Shop for DVD player" block, some useless "News" items, two more organic results, a "DVD player brands" block, a "DVD player types" block, a map block of somewhat irrelevant company listings, a "Related searches" block, and a few more ads. Plus, of course, an ad column at the right.

The organic results are almost irrelevant.

[AussieWebmaster]

not doing all major US cities and some maps are below the fold

[Jazajay]

Well it is a good feature.

[AussieWebmaster]

seems there are a bunch of things they have in common now - the search suggestions are in both as well

[AussieWebmaster]

one has to wonder if the suggest is influenced by more expensive keywords or just by most popular searches

[Jazajay]

Maybe thats just me but haven't Bing been using Search Suggest for a while now, or is more that now they have I have just assumed they have been?

I use Bing as my primary engine, but the feature they need to defo take up is Instant search, I mean that could have been done ages ago. I even implemented it on a site I did back in early 08, its really not that hard onkeyup gets users query, send it via AJAX to a search script and display the results.

I mean its been in the toolbar for how long in all the engines.

[Jazajay]

I all ways assumed it was influenced by the letters you where typing.