Jun 11 2009
Bing Travel: A Mixed Bag
Microsoft introduced Bing last month to compete with Google (and Yahoo) search. While the site has yet to really take off, it has certainly garnered a significant buzz.
One aspect of the new Bing product is Bing Travel, which according to Microsoft is intended to, “help people make smarter, more informed decisions.” This is Microsoft’s attempt to reign King in the important, value-added travel search arena.
Bing Travel is a Combination of Two Products:
1. Farecast cost prediction database which Microsoft acquired last year.
2. Travel news and editorial content we’ve known as MSN Travel.
We liked these two Bing features best:
- 7-day price predictor which indicates whether they believe you should buy now or wait. (A winner)
- Hotel rate indicator which uses historical data to to help you know whether a deal is really a deal or not. (Works great)
What’s Missing from Bing:
1. Easy and Correct Flexible Date Search.
This all important and money saving feature is what I love most about its competitor Kayak. Put in your dates and travel points and up pops the flexible fare calendar.
Bing does have a “Plan Trips” feature, which gives 30 day price windows (though not a calendar). It only works for 30 days within a 90 (or sometimes 180) day window.
I found “Plan Trips” frustrating to use, and more importantly, for me the pricing was not always correct. It could not for example find our $235 all-inclusive round-trip from LA to Honolulu. I contacted Bing Travel to ask about this feature, but have had no response. Hmmm. Well it is Microsoft.
Frankly, the flexible date search calendar is one of the big reasons I like Kayak better. While Kayak isn’t as visually appealing as Bing Travel, it just works better, in part because it’s a mature product.
2. Mobile Site Does Not Support Bing Travel.
It may in the future, I certainly hope so. Not being able to get to the travel functions while traveling, well, doesn’t work. The basic Bing mobile search works well. It competes nicely with Google at least on my Blackberry. You can find it at http://m.bing.com.
3. Limited locations. The site does not include Hawaii either in the origination or destination locations of its “Airfare Deals.”
3. Not Focused on International Traffic.
Results are only presented in U.S. dollars, and international origination and destinations aren’t selectable in their “Airfare Deals” at present. International destinations are randomly presented as destinations, however.
What’s in Bing’s future:
It will be interesting to see how Bing Travel gets tied together with the upcoming Viveri, Microsoft’s new social search engine. Keep your eyes peeled for that to be released within the next few months.
Follow Bing:
You’ll find Bing Travel on Twitter and Facebook.
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Hi Jeff,
My name is Mark Olwick and I work for Microsoft managing one of our other Web sites. I’ve forwarded your comments to a contact I have on the Big Travel team in their entirety.
If you have any other comments, we’re always happy to hear them. Just e-mail me and I’ll make sure they get to the right place.
And even though we can’t respond to each and every e-mail sent to Microsoft, we definitely read each one and they factor strongly into future release planning.
Thanks again for the constructive criticism.
Mark
Interesting review of new bing.com search engine. Well, Jeff, I did not use any of the travel features yet, and can’t say anything yet about those but here is what I did.
I did a search for ‘Kohala Coast’ and ‘Kohala Coast Vacation’ to see where my website http://www.kohalacoastweb.com – over 4 years old site, over 90 pages, product of love and dedication -comes up in bing. Nowhere to be found!
The first page of SR are all huge rental directories. Do they pay Mircrosoft or what? I don’t even come up with KohalaCoastWeb search, a really unique search for my URL.
I think that’s one the reasons that people ‘Google’. Let’s see whether they will ‘bing’ in the future. OK admittedly I am prejudiced but if there won’t be major changes in SERPS in bing, I will use Google.
Aloha, Pua @PuaHawaii
Best Hawaii Vacation Blog
Thanks for writing Mark,
I sincerely appreciate it. My feedback on Bing Travel is meant to be constructive. It is after all an extremely new product. It looks great on the cover, and I encourage Microsoft to really make it excel.
Good luck and best wishes.
Jeff
Hi Pua,
The best way to have your site show up in Bing is to submit it to that team using the tools here: http://www.bing.com/webmaster/?FORM=ZZLH2
You can create a site map as well which will then indiex your whole site, make Bing search results even more comprehensive.
Thanks,
Mark