Indeed, Bing as a search engine locks different from msn and maybe is somewhat more fancy. As a marketing gag, its also referred to as »Decision engine« rather than search engine.Accordingly, the SEO scene started to talk already about »DEO« rather than SEO. Google however, should not worry too much (nor it does). So, probably, Google will remain the unchallenged main source for your web traffic. On the other hand, if your site was well ranked on Google, it used to rank well (or even better) on msn and Yahoo!, too. Of course, there have been slight differences, like MSN preferred larger texts or the delay Yahoo put on inbound links until they gained their full weight.

If Yahoo and Microsoft will merge their search engines that could actually be a chance to you optimize your site for just two instead of three search engines and to gain higher traffic. If you are well ranked at Google, you probably will do so at Bing. However, there seem to be slight differences for optimization and ranking factors.

According to the SEO blogosphere the differences between ranking factors at Google and Bing are the following (these are often based on tests like this very smart one from SEOWIZZ). Other references are not given here as the tips have been spread around in a bunch of Blogs and forums and it’s somewhat hard to decide who is to earn the credits for them.

• first of all, you may submit your site here to Bing
• Bing has also a Webmaster tools area
• Bing prefers old domains, more than Google [SEOWIZZ]
• Links to your site should come from pages which contain the targeted keyword in the title tag (for Google it is perfectly ok in the body) [SEOWIZZ]
• Bing seems to reward onpage optimization, however, it seems to be rather the same for Google and Bing
• Having said this, Bing is believed to prefer larger texts
• Outbound links will not affect your ranking at Bing adversely but are sometimes even considered to be a plus
• Bing is less open-minded regarding the Blogosphere, on the other hand, Bing loves fresh content

On the other hand, CodeSucker Barks SEO concludes: There is no need for a special Bing optimization as the most relevant seeming factors, domain age and backlinks are out of your control (they are, aren’t they?).

So, I am curious what all that new Yahoo-Microsoft-Bing thing will turn out to be.