Bing has changed how they serve search results for some long tail keyword searches, by simply displaying a single page of search results only, without being able to easily view results beyond the first page.
Often, for super long tail queries, the search results do tend to get sketchy when you are a couple of pages in, where you end up seeing results for pages that are merely scraped search results. Not great for user experience, but for those searching for something very specific, you do occasionally find what you are looking for buried a few pages deep.
However, in a test when viewing the “see all results”, there definitely are quality and non-spammy search results being hidden behind the link.
I contacted Bing, and they said they do not comment on tests, as they often have many tests running at any time. However, this particular one does seem to be widespread rather than a limited test restricted to a small subset of users.
However, from a Bing Ads advertiser perspective, these types of super long tail queries can result in extremely targeted traffic and resulting conversions – as long as the landing page is serving up content relevant to that long tail query. And the loss of these subsequent pages of search results – often the time when targeted ads start looking promising – could definitely result in the loss of traffic for advertisers.
While some long tail queries may only bring a handful of visitors each month, multiply those by thousands – or hundreds of thousands – of visits per month, and it is easy to see that the loss of this type of traffic could have a huge impact on advertisers, especially those struggling with a lack of traffic from Bing Ads in the first place.
And yes, there is an option to click and see more results, but with the font significantly smaller than the surrounding text, most searchers would probably never see it, let alone use it.
Jennifer Slegg
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