Bing Gets Back To SEO Basics

Writing by Nick Stamoulis Tweet

Bing has finally arrived 3-5 years behind Google, who is talking about robots.txt and rel=”canonical” attributes these days. Bing is discussing what Google was discussing in 2005.

That doesn’t mean it isn’t worth talking about. A refresher is always in order. It’s just interesting that SEO and site architecture are at the forefront of Bing’s new discussion with searchers right after its big splash. But all of the points made on Bing’s blog a few days are worth mentioning.

I’d like to point out that we’ve used the bar stool analogy before. We’ve always said that keywords, links, and site architecture are important. Thank you Bing for agreeing with us! Now what does that mean?

It means that if you want your web pages to rank then certain elementary principles must be adhered to. Bing recommends:

• Descriptive file and directory names
• Limit site depth
• Keep page size to a minimum
• Place CSS and JavaScript code on a separate page
• Use 301 redirects for any pages you’ve moved
• Do NOT use Javascript or meta refresh redirects
• Customize your 404 pages

None of this is earth shattering. Google, and thousands of SEOs, have made the same recommendations for years. It’s good to see that, finally, Bing has joined us and has created a search engine that actually looks and acts like a viable search engine. I’m looking forward to using Bing more.