Bing Gets Update Similar to Google’s Hummingbird

Bing Gets Update Similar to Google’s Hummingbird
Bing search bar. (Screenshot)
12/15/2013
Updated:
12/15/2013

Microsoft, on the official Bing Search Blog “Expand your Mind with Bing,” notified users of its latest search engine update last week.

The update will provide a foundation for many of the features Siri and Google Now provide, but for the Windows Phone.

Users will receive better results for long-tail and conversation-type queries, which will help Cortana (Microsoft’s codename for its Windows Phone personal assistant) decipher user requests.

The update provides Bing with a better ability to understand the relationships implied by your search query and to provide direct answers to your questions in the Snapshot view.

In March, Bing updated to include a feature called Snapshot, which presents information in the middle column of the Bing search page.

Ted Talks, famous people’s speeches, and national anthems related to the query are now included in the Snapshot column, as well as free online courses from popular universities on the topic and the ranking of the universities offering the courses.

Include the word “theory” in your query, and Bing will provide you with a snippet of that theory, along with famous people related to the theory in question.

For example, if you search “string theory,” you will get a snippet of the string theory courtesy of Wikipedia, as well as a list of links to information about related people, such as Michio Kaku and Albert Einstein.

This most recent update comes shortly after Google’s Hummingbird algorithm update in September. Google added similar features to try to provide more relevant search results.

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