In a blog post published this week by Bing’s Senior Program Manager, Michael Basilyan, we learned how Bing’s algorithms assess content quality when ranking web pages.
Bing’s algorithms look at not only how relevant a web page is to a specific query, but also the authority, utility, and overall presentation of the content. Behind every search is a real user with a real need for information, which is something Bing takes into consideration when returning search results.
Bing looks at three particular aspects of content quality:
- Authority: How trustworthy is the content, the author of the content, and the website its published on? Signals from social networks, cited sources, and name recognition is considered when determining an author’s authority.
- Utility: How useful and detailed is the content? Content that provides appropriate levels of depth, along with supporting information, is considered to be more useful for searchers.
- Presentation: Is the content presented in a way that’s easy to read? A well presented page is one that makes its content easy to find, rather than one that forces the user to sift through unrelated material to find what they realy want.
An important note on advertising:
Bing doesn’t discourage the use of advertising, in fact it states “Bing will promote and support websites and webmasters that provide ads relevant to the content of their website.” However, the company also recommends that your ads not interfere with the user experience or be placed in such a way that they are easily confused with navigational elements.
Content quality is a primary factor in ranking, states Bing. In addition to using content quality to determine relevance, the company’s algorithms also look at topical relevance to the query and context.
