Bing, Google’s awkward cousin, is starting to grow into its looks a little. This week, they’ve taken some programs out of beta testing and made them live for the world to ignore enjoy. Are they actually useful? Will they affect your affordable search engine optimization?
Lets take a look.
The first thing that Bing released is the Bing Sitemap Plugin. It has been beta testing for awhile, but now everyone can get the Bing XML Sitemap Plugin 1.0. The tool will generate your XML sitemap compliant with sitemaps.org, and naturally it works for Apache HTTP and Windows servers. When you upload a new sitemap, you’ll automatically ping both Bing AND Google. If you want to check it out, you can find it here on the download page.
The other new feature for Bing is the Traffic Quality Center. This suite lets advertisers understand exactly how their ad campaigns are being run. It gives analytics on things like advertiser credits, pricing adjustments, and fraudulent click protection. The most useful part of the Quality Center shows exactly where your ads may appear, so you get a feel for your Bing ads as the customer may see them.
Google still is dominating the market, but Bing is rising. Check out these tools when you have a bit of spare time, and be sure to let us know how Bing is contributing to your SEO!