source : economictimes

Facebook stops using Microsoft's Bing search engine

SAN FRANCISCO: Facebook has stopped including results from Microsoft's Bing search engine on its social networking site. The move, confirmed by a company spokesperson, comes as Facebook has revamped its own search offerings, introducing a tool on Monday that allows users to quickly find past comments and other information posted by their friends on Facebook.
The decision may reflect the increasing importance that Facebook sees in Web search technology, a market dominated by rival Google.

Searches on Facebook have long been geared towards helping users connect with friends and to find other information that exists within the walls of the 1.35 billion-user social networking service. But for years, Facebook's search results also included links to standalone websites that were provided by Bing. "We're not currently showing web search results in Facebook Search because we're focused on helping people find what's been shared with them on Facebook," a company spokesperson told Reuters. "We continue to have a great partnership with Microsoft in lots of different areas."

Microsoft was not immediately available for comment.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has flagged search as one of the company's key growth initiatives, noting in July that there were more than 1 billion search queries occurring on Facebook every day and hinting that the vast amount of information that users share within Facebook could eventually replace the need to search the Web for answers to certain questions.