Although it had a rough start, Bing has actually become an excellent search engine, and the only one in Western markets that’s been able to hold its own against Google. This is thanks the fact that it’s backed by a company as large as Microsoft, and has put a lot of focus on securing partnerships with other companies to power their search engines. AOL has become the latest such company, with Microsoft announcing in a recent blog post that Bing now powers all of AOL search across every platform: computers, smartphones, and tablets. 

Last June, we announced a long term search partnership with AOL. Today, I am excited to share that as of Jan. 1, Bing powers AOL’s web, mobile, and tablet search, providing paid search ads and algorithmic organic search results to AOL’s properties worldwide. All major Bing Ads ad products are enabled for AOL search traffic worldwide to provide marketers with additional high-quality volume and ways to reach their desired audience. Our partnership with AOL brings additional scale and opportunity to advertisers and marketers. Today, 1 in 5 searches happen on Bing.com, and by providing Bing search results for the number 3 (Yahoo) and 5 (AOL) search providers in the US, Bing powers close to one-third of US PC web searches.1 Today’s announcement is testament to Microsoft’s ongoing focus on search and search advertising and our increasing scale that connects a marketer’s media buys to new publishers and audiences to help them achieve more impact for their business. For marketers looking to drive connections for their brands with the right people at the right time, AOL’s high-quality audience is a valuable addition to the Bing network. AOL has many established sites with unique, loyal users who generate several billion search queries each year and spend more online than the average internet searcher.