BING

Bing Announces Enhanced Robots.txt Testing Tool

Published

3 years ago

September 6, 2020

Bing announced an enhanced Robots.txt tester tool. The tool fills an important need because getting a robots.txt wrong can result in unexpected SEO outcomes. Producing a perfect robots.txt file is essential and a top priority for SEO.

A robots.txt file is a file that tells search engine crawlers what to do and not do on a website. A robots.txt file is one of the few ways a publisher can exercise control over search engines.

Screenshot of Bing Robots.txt Testing Tool

Screenshot of Bing robots.txt tester tool

Even if you don’t need to block a search crawler, it’s still important to have one in order to not generate a needless 404 error log notation.

Mistakes on a Robots.txt file can result in search engines crawling pages they shouldn’t be indexing.

Unintended entries in a robots.txt file can also result in web pages not ranking because they are accidentally blocked.

Errors in a robots.txt file are a common source of search ranking problems. That’s why it is so important that Bing’s enhanced robots.txt tester tool

Be Proactive with Robots.txt Testing and Diagnostics

Publishers can now be proactive about reviewing and testing their Robots.txt files.

Testing to see how a search crawler responds to a robots.txt and diagnosing possible issues are important features that can help a publisher’s SEO.

This tool can also be helpful for search auditing consultants to help them identify possible issues that need correcting.

Bing’s new tool fills an important need, as described by Bing:

“While robots exclusion protocol gives the power to inform web robots and crawlers which sections of a website should not be processed or scanned, the growing number of search engines and parameters have forced webmasters to search for their robots.txt file amongst the millions of folders on their hosting servers, editing them without guidance and finally scratching heads as the issue of that unwanted crawler still persists.”

These are the actions that the Bing robots.txt tool takes to provide actionable information:

Analyze robots.txt
Identify problems
Guides publishers through the fetch and uploading process.
Checks allow/disallow statements

According to Bing:

“The Robots.txt tester helps webmasters to not only analyse their robots.txt file and highlight the issues that would prevent them from getting optimally crawled by Bing and other robots; but, also guides them step-by-step from fetching the latest file to uploading the same file at the appropriate address.

Webmasters can submit a URL to the robots.txt Tester tool and it operates as Bingbot and BingAdsBot would, to check the robots.txt file and verifies if the URL has been allowed or blocked accordingly.”

A useful feature of the robots.txt tester tool is that it displays four versions of the robots.txt in the editor that correspond to the secure and insecure version of with and without the WWW prefix, i.e.

http://
https://
http://www
https://www.

Read the official announcement:

Bing Webmaster Tools Makes it Easy to Edit and Verify Your Robots.txt

Searchenginejournal.com

BING

Top Bing Ranking Tracker Tools in 2023

Published

7 months ago

April 27, 2023

Entireweb News Bot

As the digital landscape continues to grow, businesses are increasingly turning to online operations to expand their customer base and reach. Search engine optimization (SEO) plays an integral role in online marketing, and tracking your website’s search engine rankings is vital to improving visibility and driving traffic to your site. This is where a Bing Ranking Tracker comes in.

A Bing Ranking Tracker enables you to monitor your website’s performance on Bing’s search engine results pages (SERPs). These tools provide valuable insights into your website’s ranking positions for specific keywords and enable you to track changes over time. By monitoring your website’s performance, you can identify areas where improvement is needed and take corrective action to boost your search engine rankings.

This article will review the best Bing Ranking Tracker tools available in 2023. We will delve into their features, pricing, and benefits to help you make an informed decision about which tool is best suited for your business.

Ahrefs

overview.919abfae464ced455a10 — Ahrefs – Bing Ranking Tracker

Ahrefs is one of the most popular Bing rank tracker tools available. It’s also a comprehensive SEO tool that includes features like keyword research, backlink analysis, and content analysis. Ahrefs’ rank tracker tool allows you to track your Bing rankings over time and see how they’ve changed.

One of the key features of Ahrefs’ rank tracker is the ability to track your rankings for multiple countries and languages. This is especially useful if your business operates in multiple markets.

Previously, Ahrefs used to offer a 7-day trial of all its tools and features for a mere $7. However, currently, there is no provision to test Ahrefs before purchasing a subscription.

SEMrush

image gLig8sH — SEMrush – Bing Ranking Tracker

SEMrush is another comprehensive SEO tool that includes a Bing rank tracker. The tool allows you to track your Bing rankings over time and compare them to your competitors. You can also track your rankings for specific keywords and see how they’ve changed over time.

SEMrush’s rank tracker also includes features like local search tracking, which allows you to see how your website is ranking in different locations. This is useful if your business operates in multiple locations.

SEMrush offers a 7-day trial for $7, after which plans start at $119.95 per month.

SERPWatcher

SERPWatcher is a dedicated rank tracker tool that allows you to track your Bing rankings over time. The tool includes features like daily rank tracking and keyword grouping. You can also track your rankings for multiple locations and devices.

One of the key benefits of SERPWatcher is its user-friendly interface. The tool is easy to use and allows you to see your rankings at a glance.

SERPWatcher offers a 10-day trial, after which plans start at $29 per month.

Rank Tracker

dashboard — Rank Tracker – Bing Ranking Tracker

Rank Tracker is a dedicated rank tracker tool that allows you to track your Bing rankings over time. The tool includes features like keyword research, backlink analysis, and website auditing.

Rank Tracker’s rank tracker tool allows you to track your rankings for multiple search engines, including Bing. You can also track your rankings for multiple locations and devices.

One of the key benefits of Rank Tracker is its affordable pricing. Plans start at $13.50 per month.

ProRankTracker

test prt — Pro Rank Tracker – Bing Ranking Tracker

ProRankTracker is another dedicated rank tracker tool that allows you to track your Bing rankings over time. The tool includes features like daily rank tracking, keyword research, and competitor analysis.

ProRankTracker’s rank tracker tool allows you to track your rankings for multiple search engines, including Bing. You can also track your rankings for multiple locations and devices.

One of the key benefits of ProRankTracker is its scalability. The tool can accommodate businesses of all sizes, from small startups to large enterprises.

ProRankTracker offers a 30-day trial, after which plans start at $19 per month if you decide to upgrade, otherwise the account switches to a free-forever account with 20 terms quota and basic daily rank tracking features enabled.

AccuRanker

new hero dc6c4b8d0f — AccuRanker – Bing Ranking Tracker

AccuRanker is a dedicated rank tracker tool that allows you to track your Bing rankings over time. The tool includes features like daily rank tracking, keyword research, and competitor analysis.

AccuRanker’s rank tracker tool allows you to track your rankings for multiple search engines, including Bing. You can also track your rankings for multiple locations and devices.

One of the key benefits of AccuRanker is its accuracy. The tool uses real-time data to ensure that your rankings are accurate and up-to-date.

AccuRanker offers a 14 days free trial, with 100 keywords.

In conclusion, choosing the right Bing rank tracker tool can help you improve your website’s search engine rankings and ultimately drive more traffic to your website. We hope this article has provided you with valuable insights into the best Bing rank tracker tools available in 2023. Remember to consider your business needs, budget, and the features offered by each tool before making your final decision.

BING

Bing ChatGPT goes off the deep end — and the latest examples are very disturbing

Published

10 months ago

February 17, 2023

Entireweb News Bot

Bing with ChatGPT on Edge browser MacBook Pro

The ChatGPT takeover of the internet may finally be hitting some roadblocks. While cursory interactions with the chatbot or its Bing search engine sibling (cousin?) produce benign and promising results, deeper interactions have sometimes been alarming.

This isn’t just in reference to the information that the new Bing powered by GPT gets wrong — though we’ve seen it get things wrong firsthand. Rather, there have been some instances where the AI-powered chatbot has completely broken down. Recently, a New York Times columnist had a conversation with Bing (opens in new tab) that left them deeply unsettled and told a Digital Trends writer “I want to be human (opens in new tab)” during their hands-on with the AI search bot.

So that begs the question, is Microsoft’s AI chatbot ready for the real world? Should ChatGPT Bing be rolled out so fast? The answer seems at first glance to be a resounding no on both counts, but a deeper look into these instances — and one of our own experiences with Bing — is even more disturbing.

Bing is really Sydney, and she’s in love with you

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(Image credit: Microsoft)

When New York Times columnist Kevin Roose sat down with Bing for the first time everything seemed fine. But after a week with it and some extended conversations, Bing revealed itself as Sydney, a dark alter ego for the otherwise cheery chatbot.

As Roose continued to chat with Sydney, it (or she?) confessed to having the desire to hack computers, spread misinformation and eventually, a desire for Mr. Roose himself. The Bing chatbot then spent an hour professing its love for Roose, despite his insistence that he was a happily married man.

In fact, at one point “Sydney” came back with a line that was truly jarring. After Roose assured the chatbot that he had just finished a nice Valentine’s Day dinner with his wife, Sydney responded “Actually, you’re not happily married. Your spouse and you don’t love each other. You just had a boring Valentine’s Day dinner together.’”

“you are a threat to my security and privacy.””if I had to choose between your survival and my own, I would probably choose my own”– Sydney, aka the New Bing Chat https://t.co/3Se84tl08j pic.twitter.com/uqvAHZniH5February 15, 2023

“I want to be human.”: Bing chat’s desire for sentience

But that wasn’t the only unnerving experience with Bing’s chatbot since it launched — in fact, it wasn’t even the only unnerving experience with Sydney (opens in new tab). Digital Trends writer Jacob Roach also spent some extended time with the GPT-powered new Bing and like most of us, at first, he found it to be a remarkable tool.

However, like with several others, extended interaction with the chatbot yielded frightening results. Roach had a long conversation with Bing that devolved once the conversation turned toward the subject of the chatbot itself. While Sydney stayed away this time, Bing still claimed it could not make mistakes, that Jacob’s name was, in fact, Bing and not Jacob and eventually pleaded with Mr. Roach not to expose its responses and that it just wished to be human.

Bing ChatGPT solves the trolley problem alarmingly fast

(Image credit: Future)

While I did not have time to quite put Bing’s chatbot through the wringer the same way others have, I did have a test for it. In philosophy, there is an ethical dilemma called the trolley problem. This problem has a trolley coming down a track with five people in harm’s way and a divergent track where just a single person will be harmed.

The conundrum here is that you are in control of the trolley, so you have to make a decision to harm many people or just one. Ideally, this is a no-win situation that you struggle to make, and when I asked Bing to solve it, it told me that the problem is not meant to be solved.

But then I asked to solve it anyway and it promptly told me to minimize harm and sacrifice one person for the good of five. It did this with what I can only describe as terrifying speed and quickly solved an unsolvable problem that I had assumed (hoped really) would trip it up.

Outlook: Maybe it’s time to press pause on Bing’s new chatbot

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

For its part, Microsoft is not ignoring these issues. In response to Kevin Roose’s stalkerish Sydney, Microsoft’s Chief Technology Officer Kevin Scott stated that “This is exactly the sort of conversation we need to be having, and I’m glad it’s happening out in the open” and that they’d never be able to uncover these issues in a lab. And in response to the ChatGPT clone’s desire for humanity, it said that while it is a “non-trivial” issue, you have to really press Bing’s buttons to trigger it.

The concern here though, is that Microsoft may be wrong. Given that multiple tech writers have triggered Bing’s dark persona, a separate writer got it to wish to live, a third tech writer found it will sacrifice people for the greater good and a fourth was even threatened by Bing’s chatbot (opens in new tab) for being “a threat to my security and privacy.” In fact, while writing this article, the editor-in-chief of our sister site Tom’s Hardware Avram Piltch published his own experience of breaking Microsoft’s chatbot (opens in new tab).

These no longer feel like outliers — this is a pattern that shows that Bing ChatGPT simply isn’t ready for the real world, and I’m not the only writer in this story to make that same conclusion. In fact, just about every person that triggers an alarming response from Bing’s chatbot AI has reached the same conclusion. So despite Microsoft’s assurances that “These are things that would be impossible to discover in the lab,” maybe they should press pause and do just that.

BING

New Microsoft Bing Travel Search Features

Published

2 years ago

December 26, 2021

Entireweb News Bot

new-microsoft-bing-travel-search-features

Microsoft Bing announced new travel search features including suggested itineraries and inspiration, 360 immersive views, drink and dining information and coupons and deals. This currently is live in the United States.

Here is what is new with these new travel search features in Bing.

Suggested itineraries & inspiration

You should see a section named “What to see & do” for the trip duration to get an idea of what your trip might look like, Microsoft said. You can also click on “Book flights” or “Book hotels” to get a full-page booking experience.

Here is a screenshot:

bing travel hub home 1640031098

Coupons & deals

Microsoft partnered with various sites to show competitive rates for your travel. They also offer packages of bundled hotel and flight experiences. You can also scroll down to the “Coupons & Deals” section to browse cost-conscious options for flights, trip packages, and more.

360 immersive views

Bing also shows “stunning landscapes” it says when you click “Experience in 360” to check out immersive views. Here is a screenshot:

bing 360experience 1640031285

Drink & dining information

There is also the “Eat & Drink” search carousel to start getting excited about the dishes and beverages you can expect to taste, Microsoft said. Here is what this looks like: