The State of Washington has googled its way to Bing. The authorities noted that after considering various search engines available on the market to power the search of their official website they ended up choosing Bing. Google and Yahoo were also candidates for integration, but the State of Washington made the decision to go with the latest search engine release from Microsoft. Bing was introduced at the end of May 2009, with the rollout complete by early June. Bing will power search on the Access Washington website.

"Adding Bing to Access Washington will improve the relevancy of search results on the portal, allowing users to find the information they are looking for faster and with greater accuracy," explained DIS Deputy Director of Operations Jim Albert.

Authorities explained that the integration of Bing was designed to allow citizens to better find information stored on the Internet portal and deliver higher accuracy and relevancy. In order to add a Bing twist to Access Washington, Microsoft has partnered with the Washington State Department of Information Services (DIS). The deal will cost Washington taxpayers no money, authorities revealed.

"Three design goals that guided the development of Bing were to deliver great results, a more organized user experience, and to simplify tasks and provide insight," added Gail Thomas-Flynn, general manager of State and Local government at Microsoft. "Bing will lead to more confident decisions and allow Washington residents to search and find services, government and community information to help make faster, more informed decisions."

Via the new search/decision engine, Washington residents will be able to benefit from the same collection of features and capabilities as those offered on Bing.com. Searchable information includes state services and government. “This will help citizens find the most relevant topics and search results in a quick and easy manner,” explained Kristin Bockius, Social Media Guru at Microsoft Public Sector, SLG.