A key goal for Bing is to deliver the very best search results. One of the ways Bing does this is through a new feature called “Best match”, which sets up the best result in a distinct, easily accessible space at the top of the page.

You may ask yourself: Why did we bother to do this? Don’t search engines deliver the best result at the top of the page anyway? Today, while search engines do a pretty good job at finding the best result for a simple query, they generally won’t tell you if the top result is the official one, nor will they help you navigate within that site. Nearly a third of queries fall into this “navigational” category – where you’re really only looking for one particular site. But today people often can’t immediately find what they are looking for on a results page – only 1 in 4 queries return a completely successful result.

Best match helps you to identify which result might be most useful, particularly when one link clearly provides the official or authoritative source of information. It displays the result in a clearly marked area at the top of the page, and includes deeplinks into the most helpful parts of the site right beneath the site description.

In addition, we decided to make Best match work even harder for certain sites by incorporating some of the key features of the official site right there on the search results page. Best match can include a “search within” bar that allows you to set up a query of the official site. Where appropriate, Best match also includes a customer service number at the top of the page – a feature that people told us was of particular interest. We didn’t stop there though. Site specific tools can also be incorporated on the page. For example, you can track your parcel en route within Best match for the query “UPS”.

Best match also shows similar or related sites to your search, to allow you to explore around the actual result to your query. We are also starting to pair up some of Bing’s instant answers content with Best match to extend the experience even further. For example, when the answer to your query has multiple local listings we include that along with the site information in the Best match.

And the overall result of this for you? People tell us that it allows them to cut through the

clutter of a search results page much more effectively. It reduces their time reviewing the page, and gets them to what they were looking for faster and more directly.

Now it’s your chance. Give it a go at Bing.com with some of the following queries, or try your own. And let us know what you think.

 

Try these for size:
Starbucks
MGM Grand
NBC
Delta Airlines

 

 

Martin Stoddart, Senior Product Manager, Bing