As Google continues to value brands, giving them the first few spots in rankings, I was curious how Bing handled brands and even MLB teams.
I searched for "Yankees" thinking they are the most well known MLB team and would be a good place to start. The search results yielded the following:
Never in my wildest dreams would I think Dan Stamm would have a big thumbs up under the Yankees homepage. In actuality, Dan liked MLB on Facebook and so, at Bing's discretion, the engine decided to place Dan's "Like" endorsement under this subdomain result.
Dan would wholeheartedly "Like" an article about the Yankees entire team rolling their ankles during warmup for tonight's game. If social influence was off on this, where else could your pseudo endorsement end up? Bing has now misrepresented your sport teams. We'll let this one slide.
VisitPhilly.com is one of the big "all about Philly" kinds of sites. News, events, & everything. Lots of people Like the site on Facebook.
Enter Conflict.
There was a big debate about putting a casino on the Delaware river in Philadelphia. casiNO was plastered on posters across the city for people against having a casino in the city. The casino was built. VisitPhilly.com wrote an article about it. Now, Erin, Eric & Michelle are all placed under the casino article only because they Like Visit Philly on Facebook. Bing has now associated you with a casino/gambling. Still comfortable with what's going on? Lets dive further.
Westboro Baptist? Just because I Like the local FOX29 station now means I can have my endorsement under coverage about Westboro protesting in Philadelphia? The people who Like FOX29 didn't know what they were going to be associated with.
I never thought I'd write about abortion news coverage on the SEER blog, but because my friends Like NPR, they now have a thumbs up next to their faces & names under an anti-abortion trial article. That's not relevant at all AND that is the point of this post.
Bing needs to get a better understanding when implementing social into search. Just because I Like one Facebook fan page doesn't mean every subpage & subdomain of the main site should receive my social endorsement. When Dan Stamm likes MLB on Facebook, his face & thumbs up should only show under the homepage result, not when the Yankees page is returned. When my friends like VisitPhilly or FOX29, their endorsement should show up under the homepage, not under an article about the new casino or abortion.
I'm sure the terms of use click box made this fine to do, but it's not fine to add unrelated social nonsense to search results.
