Microsoft has introduced an update to Bing as a consequence of user feedback indicating the need to filter even more aggressively unwanted content from the results returned by the search engine. The problem was related to how Safe Search and Smart Motion Preview worked together. Safe Search, set by default to Moderate settings, is designed to leave out content, especially images and videos, but not text, of an adult nature from the results returned to user queries. Smart Motion Preview is a feature designed to offer users a preview of videos right from the search engine results page. Lax Safe Search settings means that Smart Motion Preview can be used to preview even explicit videos.

Mike Nichols, general manager, Bing, explained that the update involved two changes for Bing. “First, potentially explicit images and video content will now be coming from a separate single domain, explicit.bing.net. This is invisible to the end customer, but allows for filtering of that content by domain which makes it much easier for customers at all levels to block this content regardless of what the SafeSearch settings might be. This makes it much easier for filtering software to block unwanted content if SafeSearch has been turned off.”

Nichols stressed that the solution applied to Bing was a direct consequence of the feedback provided by end users. The refresh, pointed out the Bing GM, is only one aspect of the company's efforts to drive forward the evolution of the search engine. The Safe Search update will make Bing better suited to filtering out unwanted content.

“We will begin returning source url information in the query string for images and video content so that companies who already use this method of filtering will be able to catch explicit content on Bing along with everything else they are already blocking for their customers,” Nichols added.