Taking a look at Bing News rankings

[IndianaJonesFan]

One of the things I've noticed over the past few months is how many publishers are able to essentially "game" the rankings in the News section.

For example, I searched for "Xbox Series X" in the News section several times over the course of a few months. Near the top of the results was almost invariably was a GameSpot article that simply regurgitated the latest details about the console. Even on desktop when I switched my filters to "most recent," their article would be shown near the top and noted it was recently updated. I'm wondering if this just has something to do with how publishers are using the Bing API or something to that effect, but it's definitely something worth looking into in my opinion.

[#2]

@IndianaJonesFan Thanks for your feedback! We want to address any issues you may be having when looking at the news feed on Bing. Can you some give a bit more detail about your experience? Depending on what portion of the news feed you're in, it may be working as intended. 

[#3]

@Alyxe It's a little difficult to explain, but here's probably the best example I saw from today. This article popped up in my "news for you" feed. It's listed as only be a 12-hour-old story at this point in time, but this was clearly published a long time ago (several years ago). What I will say is that I see the publisher decided to update their publish date in the actual article (perhaps to "game" the system), so the Bing News feed is pulling in the correct information; however, I guess my suggestion is more about penalizing publishers who abuse the system or unknowingly cause things like this to pop up. I'm not a publisher myself, so I'm not saying this out of any competitiveness -- I just want to get the most relevant news possible is all.

Link to article: https://www.compsmag.com/uk/reviews/microsoft-lumia-640-review/

[#4]

Ah, I see what you mean! Thanks for sharing a screen shot and the link to the article. It does look like the information in that article is not current. To make sure that your Feedback is captured correctly, please submit feedback through the Bing Search engine by clicking "feedback" at the bottom of the screen. from there you can share your experience and it will go directly to our Bing Engineer team. 

Alyxe (she/her)

Community Manager - Bing Insiders