Delegates to the SMX Advanced Conference in Seattle were given a ‘sneak peek’ at the new version of Bing Webmaster Tools, which Microsoft will release later this summer.
Bing Webmaster Tools are a no-cost, search engine specific toolset for webmasters and SEOs targeting Bing for search engine optimisation. According to Rick De Jarnette on the Bing Community blog, the new versions are “rebuilt from the ground up to offer more data” and will include a new interface and improved charting functionalities.
The new tools are focused upon three specific areas for search engine optimisation: Crawl, Index and Traffic. Data on each area of information from the past six months will be available to webmasters, as well as “dynamic charting abilities” that will allow webmasters to focus on specific time line trends.
Another update, the Index Explorer, is a new feature that allows webmasters to take a tree-view of all of the crawling and index data for their site. “Each level in the tree view offers webmasters access to specific data management controls such as URL blocking, cache blocking and re-crawl requests” says Jarnette.
Users will also be able to prioritise which pages of their site should be crawled and added to Bing’s index, with a new feature to the Submit URLs tab. “URLs submitted through this tool will be re-crawled and added to the index if not already included – as long as they are not employing malware or web spam techniques” says Jarnette. Users will also be able to block content from Bing’s SERPs through the new ‘Block URLs tool’. Webmasters can block cache links, individual pages or container of pages, or even block their entire website.
The new Bing toolset will remain web-based. Apparently though users will benefit from the installation of Microsoft’s Silverlight 4.0 browser plug-in. Jarnette says that the plug-in’s support for rich content helps the new tools provide a “smooth visual experience” for displaying website data.
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