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Microsoft says that reference search sessions average over 9 minutes in length and over 6 queries per session before the user finds what they are looking for. With that in mind, the company is highlighting how Bing handles reference material.

There is clearly great emphasis placed on Wikipedia results, and I have to admit that as I began to read Microsoft's explanation, I was starting to think, "Why not just cut out the middle man and search Wikipedia?"

The company says things like:

"The easiest way to find the Reference vertical within Bing is to look for the Wikipedia result in Bing’s algorithmic listings. Each one of those results has an “Enhanced View” link (see below) that will take you to the that entity’s Wikipedia page, within the Bing Reference vertical."

But getting further into the explanation, you start to see some more useful things going on. For example, if you type a question as your query, you may get Wikipedia results (which is fine)in some cases, but Bing will actually go so far as to highlig actual answers within result snippets.

They give the examples of "When did earthquakes hit San Francisco" and "who did Texaco" require. Here is what Bing delivers:

Notice in the Texaco example that it highlights answers about who Texaco acquired, and not who acquired Texaco. Furthermore, it determines these answers with the use of different words besides "acquired". You get answers highlighted that say things like "purchased," "bought," "acquisition of," and "took over the operations."

Powerset is behind these semantic results, and Microsoft hopes that these kind of results will sway users to start using Bing for their reference searches. Read the rest of Microsoft's explanation to see the ways Bing handles Wikipedia content.