Bing touts search improvements in latest effort to catch Google

Microsoft has announced a number of changes designed to improve the user experience of its Bing search tool in an effort to entice web users away from market leader Google.

The team at Bing said that the service improvements would include faster page loading times and a greater relevance in search results, as well as some cosmetic changes to how search results are displayed.

This includes removing information from the left hand side of the page - where Google currently places links to alternate search categories - which Microsoft said would make the search experiences more consistent and optimised for touch devices.

"We want to make your search experience quicker and easier so you can get on with the important stuff," added Peter Maxmin, head of Bing UK.

Microsoft will no doubt be hoping the changes can improve Bing's market share, which earlier this year passed Yahoo to become the second most used service on the web.

However, this still only accounts for around 4.37 per cent of the world's search queries with long-time market leader Google way out in front with 89.94 per cent of global search queries.

Microsoft clearly has designed on Google's market, though, with the firm announcing a deal with Chinese search company Baidu earlier this month a move that could help its Bing engine gain a far larger market share.

Earlier this year, Microsoft also unveiled the most wide-reaching update to its Bing search engine in three years by adding a new social sidebar that includes links from an array of social media sites including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+ for search results.