Bing announced today that it is launching a new product search experience, which utilizes its index of tens of millions of products, along with machine learning, to show products on the main results page, rather than making users go to a dedicated shopping page.
As you can see, it looks vaguely like Google’s Knowledge Carousel and the style the search engine recently added to local results.
“For example, if you are in the market for a new camera. Simply enter ‘dslr camera’ and you will see a category snapshot with the top dslr cameras,” Bing explains in a blog post. “You might have heard about a specific Canon model, you click on the <Canon EOS 6D> and you will see our new Carousel so you can quickly browse other related products that might be of interest and then narrow down the selection that best meets your needs. We’re also bringing the power of our industry leading Snapshot technology to expose more of the details you need for a specific product, like specs and reviews, to make a decision without having to click to another page.”
“If you want to purchase the product, we present you with two easy options,” Bing says. “First, product pricing and availability directly from the merchant themselves will appear right inside search results in what we call Rich Captions. So if Target, for example, has the product you’re looking for, and that link appears in search results, Bing will show you their price and availability information. Another way Bing helps is through new product adswith photos and pricing that provide you the ability to quickly see offers from merchants across the web.”
The new product search experience will be rolling out over the course of the coming months, so you may still see the old version for a while.
Image: Bing