Bing continues to deliver updates and changes to their web search results. In a blog post today on the Bing blog four major additions to search results were added. Some of these changes target developers specifically and some are for more general searches.
Developers who search for code examples and API references can now expect to see Bing return code samples. These code samples are even formatted so a developer could copy and paste them directly into their projects to test them out. Comparing themselves to Google results, Bing has much more value in their immediate results. Without clicking any links code samples are shown with the other search results.
In addition to code samples, developers can now use non-alphanumeric characters in their search queries. Microsoft writes, “Technical developer queries often contain non-alphanumeric characters like :: (scope), ++ (operators), () (function), etc. Such queries are notoriously difficult for a search engine to handle.” Now with Bing, these characters are no longer useless in a web search! Searching for ‘exec()’ in Bing will return results relevant to running executable files on an operating system. While Google still acts as if the search was just ‘exec’.
If you are not a developer Bing as made improvements for you too! Software searches now return more relevant information directly on the results page. Information such as cost, download site, reviews, related, and safety are all laid out in the side bar. Searchers can quickly see if a program is legitimate or not right from a single search.
Finally, Microsoft is giving its technologies extra attention in relevant searches. Now frequently asked questions are brought to the top of the results and organized in tabs. For example searching for Cortana yields, “What is Cortana? Is Cortana on? What can I speak?” to the top. More information in less clicks seems to be a theme throughout all of these improvements.
Would this sway you to use Bing? Are you a developer in need of code examples? What do you think of Microsoft’s latest attempt to bring people over to Bing?
