Microsoft BingCopied

Bing has spent its life in Google's shadow, and in October 2020 Microsoft decided its search engine would stop pretending to be a standalone brand. The Verge reported that Microsoft announced in a blog post on 5 October that Bing was now Microsoft Bing, adding the parent name to the product, and Search Engine Land covered the change the same day.

Microsoft gave only one line of reasoning, quoted by both outlets: the new name reflects the continued integration of its search experiences across the Microsoft family. Search Engine Land pointed out that Bing was already built into Office 365, the Edge browser and other Microsoft products. The Verge placed the move in a wider pattern of adding Microsoft to product names, from the Windows Store becoming the Microsoft Store to Office 365 moving to Microsoft 365, with Edge and Teams also carrying the company name, while Surface and Xbox had largely escaped.

The visual change came in two parts. Bing got its own updated logo, a new curved b that Search Engine Land said had first been spotted in testing in April. That mark appeared in the favicon. On Bing.com and in search results, a four panel Microsoft Bing logo took its place instead, a version first seen in testing in August. The Verge noted it was unclear whether Microsoft would eventually retire the standalone Bing mark in favour of the Microsoft centric one or keep both, and said the company had been experimenting with Bing logos for months.

The rebrand arrived alongside an expansion of Give with Bing, which lets Microsoft Rewards members donate points to more than 1.4 million nonprofits. Search Engine Land judged that such moves were aimed at differentiating Bing from Google and winning share, and that the announcements did not change how marketers optimise for search.

The new curved b is a clear improvement on the old blocky letter. Its ribbon shape and teal to blue gradient feel current, and it reads cleanly at favicon size, which is where Microsoft first put it. The renaming is more telling than the drawing. Wrapping Bing in the Microsoft four squares is an admission that the sub brand had not built enough equity on its own, and that the parent's trust was the stronger asset. As The Verge observed, most people would still just call it Bing. That gap between official name and everyday use is the story of the product in miniature.