How can experiments carried out in the US impact Manchester SEO efforts for webmasters based in the city?
The answer is revealed in a Bing Search Quality Insights Blog post, in which Dr Ronny Kohavi, a partner architect in Bing’s R&D team, describes recent efforts to redefine how Bing treats its first page of results.
In particular, Microsoft have worked to reduce the number of ‘blue links’ returned for very obvious search queries – such as ‘eBay’ – and to increase the number where it may be useful for searchers.
That means that, even if you don’t achieve a first-page ranking when a query is initially conducted, you may appear on the first page if the searcher visits a result and then hits ‘back’ in their browser.
Dr Kohavi explains that, when a user visits the top search query but then clicks ‘back’ to return to their search results, they are much more likely to look at results further down the page.
By increasing the number of ‘blue links’ from eight to 14, Microsoft found the typical user was able to find what they were looking for faster when the top result did not answer their initial query.
As such, the first page of Bing results could include anywhere from four to 14 results, depending on your query and whether you have just clicked ‘back’ – and that means Manchester SEO efforts need to be adaptable if they are to achieve what can legitimately be deemed a ‘front-page’ ranking.
