Bing Catapult: New Technology Delivers Faster, More Relevant Search Results

Bing has put significant resources behind a new data center project at Microsoft designed to give searchers faster results and results that are much more relevant to the query. Call it Bing's version of Google Caffeine.

The Catapult project is a redesign of the data centers and machines that power Bing search. It began in 2012 and plans to effectively recreate how Bing handles searches in the backend.

The Catapult project technology can also be scaled across many different Microsoft platforms and services, meaning it can provide a faster user experience to their customers outside of Bing search as well.

Like Google and every other web giant, Microsoft runs its web services atop thousands of computer servers packed into warehouse-sized data centers, and most of these machines are equipped with ordinary processors from Intel, the world's largest chip maker. But when he sat down with Lu, Burger said he wanted millions of dollars to build rack after rack of computer servers that used what are called field-programmable arrays, or FPGAs, processors that Microsoft could modify specifically for use with its own software. He said that these chips–built by a company called Altera–could not only speed up Bing searches, but also change the way Microsoft run all sorts of other online services.

What is also unique about the system is that Bing can update and enhance these types of chips, whereas the server system way of doing things has stalled out when it has come to getting the next bigger and faster version, according to a blog post on Microsoft TechNet.

"Going into production with this new technology will be a watershed moment for Bing search," he

Videos Dominate Universal Search Results 65% of the Time [Study]

by Jessica Lee,June 19, 2014CommentsSince its inception in 2007, universal search results have have morphed to show a multitude of choices for searchers to choose from, like videos, images, maps, shopping results, and news.

 

How Responsive Design Increases the Results of Your Online Marketing

by Kristi Hines,June 20, 2014Comments

We all hear about responsive design. But as a marketer, sometimes we are only focused on the specific tasks, such as creating content, developing email campaigns, building links, and updating social media networks. The fact of the matter is, if you or your clients do not have a responsive design in place, then all of the online marketing strategies we implement will not bring the full potential of results.

This post will cover the points you need to make to your boss or your clients when it comes to adding responsive design into the marketing mix.

A Quick Rundown of Mobile Statistics

So how does mobile play into content, email, search, and social media marketing? Here are just a few of the stats.

60 percent of Internet access is made on a mobile device. (InMobi)51 percent of emails are now opened on mobile devices. (Litmus)The majority of mobile consumers use search in the shopping process. Forty-eight percent start on search engines. (Google)70 percent of mobile searches lead to action on websites within one hour. That's assuming that the website is mobile-friendly, otherwise 40 percent will choose another result. (iAcquire)60 percent of social media time is spent on smartphones and tablets as opposed to desktop browsers. (Business Insider)

What do these statistics mean? They mean that every aspect of our online marketing efforts – content, email, search, and social – is affected by mobile. People are reading content, opening emails, performing searches, and engaging with brands on social media – all on their mobile devices.

If statistics do not convince you that getting mobile-friendly with responsive design is important, then hop into your Google Analytics and go to the Mobile Overview in the Audience portion. Chances are, if you do a traffic comparison between this year and last, you'll notice that your mobile users have grown, potentially significantly.