In the latest move over at the Bing Blog, Microsoft is continuing to make users’ data safe and secure. In order to do this, Microsoft employs the use of TLS protocols to use encryption over Bing’s network and services. Bing already offers users the option of encrypting search traffic, but Microsoft hopes to make encrypted search by default a standard practice beginning this summer. The only difference in this move is that traffic will originate from https://www.bing.com instead of http://www.bing.com.
Encrypted search by default will continue to use a referrer line so that marketers will be able to know that the web traffic came from Bing. In another move to protect users’ privacy, Bing will not use actual query terms in the encrypted web search terms. Bing will use limited query term data without revealing customer data through Bing’s various webmaster and advertiser tools.
Bing has several webmaster and advertiser tools, including:
- Search Query Terms Report – available in the Bing Ads UI, the Search Query Terms Report allows you to view what search terms prompt certain advertisements and other performance metrics like clicks, impressions, and conversions.
- Universal Event Tracking – gives you more detailed performance metrics like duration per visit, pages per visit, and total visits so you can learn the query keywords that initiate conversion performance.
- Bing Webmaster Tools – Bing’s Webmaster Tools help you understand keyword and ranking data. Bing Webmaster Tools can help me make sure that your website is indexed in Bing, give you the research tools and reports to give you your website’s search ranking and what makes people you can be sure your site gets indexed in Bing, get access to research tools and reports that can help you understand what drives people to come to your website.
Microsoft is continually looking to protect its users’ data and security and will continue to do that with the introduction of Windows 10 on July 29th. Bing’s new move to encrypt users’ search history will likely affect marketers and webmasters, Bing will provide a better and more secure search experience for Bing’s users.
Further reading: Bing, Microsoft, Windows 10
