Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Bing Photo Contest and Webmaster Toolbox

Microsoft's new search engine, Bing, continues to roll-out a variety of new marketing and webmaster initiatives.

The Bing Photo Contest on Facebook lets you enter your photos for your own 'moment of fame' on Bing's front page.

Webmasters were introduced to the Bing Toolbox over the weekend with updated information including how to get your website listed in Bing, submitting XML sitemaps, and a new Bing API.

It's worth noting that Bing, like it's predecessor Live.com, still relies heavily on the sitemaps.org robots.txt file standard (IE: Include that XML sitemap line in your robots.txt file!). 

You can also ping your new or updated XML sitemap to Bing directly from your browser.  The new layout is:
http://www.bing.com/webmaster/ping.aspx?siteMap=[your full xml sitemap URL]

Bing IS still producing a significantly higher organic return than Live.com on websites that I watch.

Is it novelty or do people like it?

Time will tell :)