Facebook Drops Bing Search

Bing FBFacebook has stopped including web results from Microsofts search engine Bing in Facebook Search.

This news follows the rollout of News Feed Search on the social network last week, enabling users to search through the posts made by their friends for the first time.

During Facebooks Q2 2014 earnings call in July, CEO Mark Zuckerberg pointed to the “huge potential” of search for the company, noting that the average number of daily searches on the social network had broken 1bn.

“Search for Facebook is going to be a multi-year voyage,” said Zuckerberg. “Theres just so much content that is unique to the Facebook ecosystem that we can answer questions for you that really no other service can.”

A spokesperson for Facebook confirmed the move to Reuters, adding that “we continue to have a great partnership with Microsoft in lots of different areas.”

Back in 2007, Microsoft actually attempted to acquire Facebook, but the offer was rejected. Instead, Microsoft took a 1.6 per cent stake in the company for $240m – which it still holds today.

As part of the deal, Microsoft also contributed display ad tech to the social network, which was dropped by Facebook in 2010 to concentrate on building up its own ad offering. With potential search ad revenues in mind, it looks like Facebook could be doing the same thing again with this decision.