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Bing Autosuggest Adds More People Info

Bing announced the addition of some more information about people in its autosuggest feature. Now, when you search for celebrities, politicians, athletes, or people with LinkedIn profiles, Bing will p...
Bing Autosuggest Adds More People Info
Written by Chris Crum
  • Bing announced the addition of some more information about people in its autosuggest feature. Now, when you search for celebrities, politicians, athletes, or people with LinkedIn profiles, Bing will provide info about that person in the drop-down with the search suggestions.

    In cases where there are multiple people with the same name, it will ask which one you meant:

    Bing Autosuggest

    The feature is part of Bing’s “snapshot” pane, which Bing launched last year.

    “The goal of Bing’s Snapshot feature – our center column on the main results page – is to help people find information they need to understand their world,” a Bing spokesperson tells WebProNews. “With the people category as the second largest searched on Bing, we’re giving you another way to find people faster and directly from the search box.”

    According to Dan Marantz, Lead Program Manager for Bing Query Formulation UX, people searches are the second most searched for category, after navigational queries, and account for roughly 10% of queries on Bing.

    “In the milliseconds between keystrokes, Bing lets you narrow down your search by clicking on the correct person,” he says. “If Bing has information on a person, we let you know by displaying it below the search box. In some instances, multiple people share the same name. When this happens, we’ll provide information for the most relevant people with that name, and help you narrow down your search.”

    The new autosuggest feature was co-developed By the Search Technological Center in London.

    The feature appears to be in the process or rolling out.

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