Bing Launches New "Places for Business" Dashboard. Can you say Copy Cat?

[Linda Buquet]

Bing just launched a NEW listing management dashboard. (Can you say "keeping up with the Joneses"?)

They named it "Places for Business" (Can you say "copy cat"? Can you say "Trademark confusion"?)

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Kerry Fagan, one of our active members just broke the story over at Local SEO Update.

Bing Places for Business Launches

With all the hoopla over the new Google Places for Business dashboard, Bing has been getting even less attention than usual (which isn’t much to start with), but today marks the launch of the new business owner-facing dashboard of Bing Local — Bing Places for Business.

Besides the fact of a seemingly copying of the name Google has used for years, the new layout is actually quite swanky, and because I’m assuming not many others will cover this, I’ll give a brief rundown of what’s new.

Check out the screenshots over there. As Kerry says, it looks pretty clean and slick.

Here is the official announcement from Bing:
Bing Business Portal is Now Bing Places for Business

What do you think?

Image credit: k8southern

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Re: Bing Launches New "Places for Business" Dashboard. Can you say Copy Cat?

Excellent news! I'm going to be setting-up a client on BING today. I'll come back here if I find anything to add to the discussion.

Thanks again

 

[Linda Buquet]

Re: Bing Launches New "Places for Business" Dashboard. Can you say Copy Cat?

Seems Microsoft is saying "Bing it on!" to Google Local!

Cool Colan. Let us know what you find out!

 

[Marie Ysais]

Re: Bing Launches New "Places for Business" Dashboard. Can you say Copy Cat?

They were do an overhaul! So I hope it makes it a lot more user friendly. I have had issues with Bing's dashboard in the past.

Now, how did you get my cat to pose for your picture?

 

[Linda Buquet]

Re: Bing Launches New "Places for Business" Dashboard. Can you say Copy Cat?

That's your kitty? Who knew?

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Re: Bing Launches New "Places for Business" Dashboard. Can you say Copy Cat?

Just encountered an error message when attempting to submit a listing:



No idea if it's something I did wrong or if it's part of the transition jitters. Anyone else having this problem?

 

[Linda Buquet]

Re: Bing Launches New "Places for Business" Dashboard. Can you say Copy Cat?

An error? I'll be darned. They really are copying Google Places for Business!

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Re: Bing Launches New "Places for Business" Dashboard. Can you say Copy Cat?

They have a phone verification option, which is a great new feature.

 

[a11c]

Re: Bing Launches New "Places for Business" Dashboard. Can you say Copy Cat?

Colan,

They have always had the phone verification option,however, now instead of getting a PIN from the screen and entering it into the phone, it's a mirrored version of Googles phone verification. Send call, obtain PIN, enter PIN on screen.

Best

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Re: Bing Launches New "Places for Business" Dashboard. Can you say Copy Cat?

Thanks for clarifying It definitely feels like a smoother process now. Except for the error message I mentioned earlier. In regards to that, we attempted again without any problems on the second try.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Re: Bing Launches New "Places for Business" Dashboard. Can you say Copy Cat?

Except for the error message I mentioned earlier. In regards to that, we attempted again without any problems on the second try.

One up on Google! Bing's errors don't last for 5 months.

 

[Phil Rozek]

Re: Bing Launches New "Places for Business" Dashboard. Can you say Copy Cat?

First and foremost, that is a beautiful kitty. Russian Blue?

As Colan said, the submit-listing process for Bing definitely is a lot smoother now. I just added a listing. I think the main reason it's smoother is there aren't as many steps / tabs. For instance, instead of asking you on a separate screen to specify your categories, and on another screen to add photos, it's all on one page now - a la Google Places dashboard.

I didn't see a phone-verification option, but maybe that's because I was adding an entirely new listing, rather than claiming one that was already in the system. Alex and Colan: were you guys claiming listings (not adding them from scratch)?

Matt McGee also covered this, BTW:

Bing Places For Business replaces Bing Business Portal

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Re: Bing Launches New "Places for Business" Dashboard. Can you say Copy Cat?

Hi Phil,

I was claiming, not creating from scratch.

 

[Phil Rozek]

Re: Bing Launches New "Places for Business" Dashboard. Can you say Copy Cat?

Hi Phil,

I was claiming, not creating from scratch.

Good to know. Thanks, Colan!

 

[a11c]

Re: Bing Launches New "Places for Business" Dashboard. Can you say Copy Cat?

I was claiming a listing that already existed as well.

 

[Drew Goettemoeller]

Re: Bing Launches New "Places for Business" Dashboard. Can you say Copy Cat?

This is a much nicer dashboard, although occasionally it will throw an error saying that you can not edit the address and phone number at the same time. Otherwise this was a much cleaner, faster process.

One of the fields that I see is missing (at least prior to verification) is the primary services section. Does this show up once verified? I haven't had the chance to get a few verified in the new system yet.

 

[Phil Rozek]

Re: Bing Launches New "Places for Business" Dashboard. Can you say Copy Cat?

One of the fields that I see is missing (at least prior to verification) is the primary services section. Does this show up once verified? I haven't had the chance to get a few verified in the new system yet.

Are you referring to the sliding bars that they used to have, which you could use to specify the relative importance of one category over another? If so, I was also wondering where that went.

 

[Drew Goettemoeller]

Re: Bing Launches New "Places for Business" Dashboard. Can you say Copy Cat?

No Phil, The categories are still all there!

Maybe I have it wrong in my notes.

 

[a11c]

Re: Bing Launches New "Places for Business" Dashboard. Can you say Copy Cat?

Here is one major downside to the new Bing Places

"Mechell: We apologize for the inconvenience. Please know that changing the business name in the new portal is not yet available at this time.

Mechell: This is now by design due for security reasons to ensure that no one can claim and change business names of other listings in the same location.

Mechell: I regret that we also do not have the ability to change it on our end. Nonetheless, we already brought the request to our Development Team to reinstate the feature and they are considering to allow minor format changes which is mostly the case for our customers."

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Re: Bing Launches New "Places for Business" Dashboard. Can you say Copy Cat?

Bummer. Was this part of a live support convo? Is that feature still available?

Thanks Alex