Bing has enabled the ability to make a search using images in the latest update to its mobile app on iPhone. The feature allows Apple users to use an image from the web or a picture they have taken on their smartphones as a basis for the search.

Microsoft has started testing social extensions in search ads. The handy new tool will allow brands to promote their social channels within search ads by placing links directly to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other social media accounts beneath the ad copy of texts. The extension is now in beta in the US.

Microsoft is enabling you to test the speed of your internet connection via Bing directly from the results page.

Bing is dropping two popular features from its keywords research and optimisation tool Bing Ads Intelligence.

Although much of the focus for search engine stories often falls on Google, Bing is an increasingly important player for anyone looking to mount a comprehensive SEO campaign.

Bing has been busy. Not content with turning itself into one of the most advanced search engines available in respect of image search, the Microsoft-owned Bing has now turned its attention to making improvements to its video search functionality.

Search engine Bing is to start encrypting searches using Transport Layer Security (TLS) as part of a broader move by Bing owner Microsoft to expand encryption within its network and service offerings. What this means for users of Bing is that rather than seeing referrals coming from http://www.bing.com, they will see them originating from https://www.bing.com. Bing rolled out the option for encrypting search traffic around a year and a half ago.

Search engine Bing has said that it will follow Google’s Mobilegeddon move and roll out its own mobile-friendly ranking system in the months ahead. Bing has been outlining how it is to determine whether a webpage is mobile-friendly, when it intends adding the label mobile-friendly to sites, and what sites need to be doing to ensure the content on them is mobile-friendly.

As more and more digital content, from news feeds to video production, makes its way to the mobile channel, it came as little surprise to hear from Bing at the start of this month that it’s launched a new battery of mobile crawlers. They come complete with Bingbot Mobile User Agents, to enhance the support and recognisability of websites that aren’t responsively designed. But what do webmasters need to do to improve their mobile rankings with Bing?

We’re all familiar with Google’s ever developing ways of searching for and demoting low quality sites – anyone involved in SEO will be aware of the tricks and twists of the Panda, Penguin and Payday algorithms and the effects their updates can have on a site’s position in search results.