Redmond, Washington — Of late, Microsoft’s Bing has unveiled a number of changes to its search engine in a bid to compete with the likes of Google and Yahoo for web surfers’ affections. And now, the company announced the news on the Bing blog, where it explained a number of changes designed to improve the user experience for searchers, including speed, performance and design enhancements to its homegrown internet search engine.
According to the Bing UK team, stated that the service improvements consists of faster page loading times and a greater relevance in search results, as well as some aesthetic changes to how search results are displayed.
To begin with, the homepage has been redesigned, with a cleaner interface. This includes scraping information from the left side of the page — where Google places links to additional vertical search options, such as news, video and images — which Microsoft said would make the search experiences more consistent and optimized for touch devices. In fact, users will also be greeted with larger images on the start-up screen (see image above).
Interestingly, Bing users often mention about the homepage images as one of the most attractive elements of using the search engine. Now, the UK version essentially matches the US version.
Expounding on the time factor, the company executive said, “Most of us would like to devote less time searching for information online, as, let us face it, there is more to life than search,” explained Peter Maxmin, head of Bing UK.
“We want to make your search experience smarter and easier so you can get on with the important stuff,” Maxmin added.
With this release, when users start searching for results, they will no longer be attacked with endless information on the left of the page. Indeed, the results themselves are cleaner and the header raises the level of consistency and predictability while making it easier for you to scan the page and quickly find the information you want, said Bing’s UK Team on a company blog. Also, “Increasing the space between lines improves readability and optimizes the page for touch devices.”
Apart from some nifty feature, “The new experience is more than skin-deep. You will also notice faster page-load times and improved relevance under the hood,” the team added.
Fortunately, Bing is no doubt hoping that the changes can improve its global search market share. Last year, Bing overtook Yahoo to become the second most used search engine on the web, according to StatCounter. Besides, earlier this year, Bing also unveiled a big redesign, adding a new social sidebar that includes links from an array of social media sites including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+ for search results.