Bing made an announcement today on their blog about the introduction of a new feature to their Webmaster Tools called Connected Pages.
Bing Webmaster Tools is very similar to Google Webmaster Tools in that it allows you to verify websites you own and track a multitude of data gathered from search activity.
However, both of these sets of tools have a limit. You can only track data on sites you personally own or control. Bing’s new Connected Pages now allows you to take it a step further.
In addition to claiming websites, you can now claim social media pages and connect them to your account. This will allow you to track similar data related to those connected pages. For example, if you want to know what keywords people are using to find your social media pages, you will now be able to do that.
You can connect a full range of social media pages as long as those pages have a link back to your verified website. You won’t have to provide Bing with any special permissions for your social media accounts, so your privacy is still fully in tact.
Here is a complete list of social media pages that are currently supported:
- Google+
- Windows Store
- Google Play
- Apple Store
- Windows Phone Store
- YouTube
- MySpace
You can begin connecting any of these pages to your Bing Webmaster Tools starting today.
What do you think about Bing’s new connected pages? Personally I think it’s a great idea, and I would love to see Google adopt something similar. We all know how Google feels about providing keyword data, but I’m sure there would still be useful information to be gained if the search giant had this functionality.
