First spotted at Webmasterworld, BingBot arrived yesterday, and Bing later confirmed a staged rollout is underway a couple days ahead of schedule.
Bing noted that you'll continue seeing traffic in your server logs mostly from MSNBot, but will transition to (and be completely replaced by) BingBot traffic (Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; bingbot/2.0 +http://www.bing.com/bingbot.htm) over the next few weeks.
This transition period is designed to provide time for Bing to "validate consistency, and provide you time to catch and fix potential issues with the new crawler." Bing said sites shouldn't experience a significant increase of the total crawl traffic from MSNBot and BingBot for any extended period.
Previously, Bing announced details for SEOs on the crawling changes:
- Review your server configurations for crawler access. Webmaster-managed bot access control methodologies, such as robots.txt files, robots tag directives, and HTTP headers, may need to be adjusted if you normally block all crawlers except for specific, preferred search crawlers.
- Bing will still honor all applicable robots.txt directives, including those specific to MSNBot. As of October 1st, if Bing detects separate sets of custom directives for both MSNBot and BingBot in your robots.txt file, the BingBot directives will take precedence.
- If your sites are configured for any special handling based on user agent (such as via the .htaccess file), you'll need to update this for BingBot so we can continue to crawl your sites as before.
- Make sure BingBot has the same access to your site as given to MSNBot. If you previously blocked the Bing crawler but allowed the Yahoo crawler access to your site, you'll need to allow access to BingBot to continue to be seen in Yahoo search results.
Bing also advised everyone to use standard SEO techniques and register their sites with the new Bing Webmaster Tools.
Here's a roundup of today's other top search headlines and tips from around the Web, sorted by category.
Search Industry
Yahoo Media Boss Disputes Censorship Claims - BusinessInsider
IAC Boss Barry Diller Disses Ask, Says It Has "No Value" - Search Engine Land
Search Engine Optimization
8 Signs of an SEO Snake Oil Salesman - Yahoo Advertising Blog
Five signs your new SEO client may suck - Search Engine People
Search Advertising
New for the Google Display Network: Show ads related to demographic categories - Inside AdWords
Multicultural Spotlight: Reaching US Hispanics - AdWords Agency Blog
Holiday Preparation Series: Home and Garden PPC Insights and Optimization Tips (U.S. Market) - adCenter Blog
YSM/adCenter Feature Comparison #2: Distribution Controls - Yahoo Search Marketing Blog
AdWords vs. AdSense: What's the Difference? - PPC Hero
Top 20 Fastest Growing Verticals In Paid Search (Aug 2010) - AdGooroo
Analytics & ROI
Back To Basics: The Power of Exclusion (Part 2) - Google Analytics
Social Media Marketing
Facebook Revenue Estimates Go Up--Even More - paidContent
Yahoo Advertises on Facebook, Its Rival in Reach - ClickZ
Facebook's Sandberg Says No Social Graph Ad Network, Yet - ClickZ
Facebook Exec: All Media Will Be Personalized in 3 to 5 Years - ReadWriteWeb
Facebook Now Shows Four Ads Per Page Instead of Three - Inside Facebook
Advertisers Can Now Set Lifetime Budgets for Facebook Ad Campaigns - Inside Facebook
7 Practical Steps To Managing A Facebook Crisis - BlueGlass
The 9 Worst Ways to Use Twitter for Business - HubSpot Blog
Twitter Shuts Out Political Advertisers, For Now - ClickZ
Replies and Retweets on Twitter - Sysomos
LinkedIn Aggregates Status Updates and Tweets in New Newsfeed - Mashable
Kevin Rose: Digg Turned Down $80 Million Acquisition Offer - ReadWriteWeb
Local & Mobile Search
The 3 Major Causes of Duplicate Listings in Local Search - Search Engine Journal
Google Maps and the Payday Loan Industry - Strange Bedfellows? - Understanding Google Maps & Local Search
Pew Research: 24% of American Adults Have Posted Reviews - Understanding Google Maps & Local Search
Mobile Web Growth "Stunning," Says Opera's New Report - ReadWriteWeb
CHART OF THE DAY: Mobile Search Peaks At Night, Desktop Search Peaks In The Morning - Business Insider
Introducing the Google Phone Gallery - Google Mobile Blog
Explore the world with Street View, now on all seven continents - Official Google Blog
International Search
YouTube Strikes Deal With French Music Industry - Wall Street Journal
Facebook Launches Places In Australia - All Facebook
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