this is a blog post as originally posted on locallytype

My part is done…

But first things first; I still have love for Bing, my Windows Phone, my Xbox and last but not least Microsoft as they have been an exceptional employer. Much like Yahoo! had been for me in the past.

I will sincerely miss the folks from our search technology centers in Munich and London. Jordi, Mike, Antonio, Andreas, Travis, Nick, Ian, Eddie, Geoff, Jasmina, Simon, Thomasz and the others who are working their butts off to make Bing better every single day. And it is tremendous to see where Bing in Europe is today compared to where it has been 3 Years ago.

We/They all know that there is still a long and exciting way ahead, but what has been achieved with the resources at hand is truly remarkable. You guys rock!

Same goes for my local team here – they are a great bunch! Christian who ditched us for Hotmail way too soon – never thought I could get along with someone from the land of crafty road thief’s and home of the most uninspired flag in the world. Not having Christoph sit next to me and nodding and giving good advice when I complain/whine how unfair and mean the world is, will send me in a state of withdrawal.

As to Anton – what can I say – “hod scho passt” which is a Bavarian expression of understatement meaning that it was really great – but a Bavarian would never say let alone write something that extreme.

Well now that you know all is fabulous and shiny you ask why leave then?

There are a few things that are crucial for me in a job. One very important thing is learning new things and getting better at what I do. That was the exact reason to join Microsoft three years ago. I have held multiple product roles in the past and wanted to sink my teeth more into the marketing side of things.

And Bing has been a fantastic place to learn more about this. We launched a global new search product and had and have incredibly smart/clever campaigns running.  Have you seen the Jay-Z campaign????

Witnessing, with and inside out look, how marketing is done on scale is a truly fascinating thing. But now I feel I have learned quite a bit about that and am excited to move on.

Just as important as learning new thing is the craving I have to make an impact.

And as far as my local organization is concerned I was very much encouraged to pursue that. And we did. I’m especially proud of all the work we have put into learning from and enabling the search community in Germany. We have made countless friends over the course of the years and have gotten great insights that we then shared with our engineers to help make Bing better.

Thanks to everybody involved. Special Thanks got to Stefan Weitz, Prof. Dr. Mario Fischer, Marcus Tandler, Uwe Tippmann, Stefan Fischerländer, Alan Webb, Marcus Schöberichts, Sandra Finlay, Pascal Fantou, Marco Janck, Martin Missfeldt, Johannes Beus, Hanns Kronenberg , Thomas Bindl, Daniel Melanchton Colm Bracken, Rand Fishkin, Niels Dörje, Prof. Dr. Franz Guenthner, Cedric Chambaz and everybody I’m forgetting now.

As to what’s next… stay tuned!

this is a blog post as originally posted on locallytype

True – I’m leaving Microsoft

Microsoft has released a new SEO Toolkit for download. It comes with a nice set of features and I definetely think its worth checking out.

You can find the download here: Search Engine Optimization Toolkit

Site Analysis Features

• Fully featured crawler engine
• Configurable number of concurrent requests to allow users to crawl their Web site without incurring additional processing. This can be configured from 1 to 16 concurrent requests.
• Support for Robots.txt, allowing you to customize the locations where the crawler should analyze and which locations should be ignored.
• Support for Sitemap files allowing you to specify additional locations to be analyzed.
• Support for overriding ‘noindex’ and ‘nofollow’ metatags to allow you to analyze pages to help improve customer experience even when search engines will not process them.
• Configurable limits for analysis, maximum number of URLs to download, and maximum number of kilobytes to download per URL.
• Configurable options for including content from only your directories or the entire site and sub domains.
• View detailed summary of Web site analysis results through a rich dashboard
• Feature rich Query Builder interface that allows you to build custom reports
• Quick access to common tasks
• Display of detailed information for each URL
• View detailed route analysis showing unique routes to better understand the way search engines reach your content

Robots Exclusion Features

• Display of robots content in a friendly user interface
• Support for filtering, grouping, and sorting
• Ability to add ‘disallow’ and ‘allow’ paths using a logical view of your Web site from the result of site analysis processing
• Ability to add sitemap locations

Sitemap and Sitemap Index Features

• Display of sitemaps and sitemap index files in a simple user interface
• Support for grouping and sorting
• Ability to add/edit/remove sitemap and sitemap index files
• Ability to add new URL’s to sitemap and sitemap index files using a physical or logical view of your Web site
• Ability to register a sitemap or sitemap index into the robots exclusion file

this is a blog post as originally posted on locallytype

New SEO Toolkit from Microsoft

Bing Europe or better the STC (Search Technology Center) Europe has opened some new head counts in their engineering department. For all of our three locations Munich, Paris and London we are looking for Program Managers, Software Development Engineers and Software Development Engineers in Test.

The Munich STC is focusing on core web search relevancy, the Paris one focuses on local search challenges while the London STC focuses on the frontend and the user experience part of what makes Bing such a great thing.

Job opportunities at the STC Europe

this is a blog post as originally posted on locallytype

Bing is looking for Smart(est) Minds – Developers and Program Managers

Since yesterday Stefan Weitz is back in Germany and we had the pleasure to be guest @ the mediaplex. Where the Mediadonis was co-hosting the webmasterradio.fm show webmasters on the roof. Marcus and Stefan talked a lot about Bing, where search is heading and what Bing is doing to fight spam. Plus some great insights on how CTR might be used to rank organic listings. Really worthwhile to listen in – the first half hour of the show is in German but the second 30 minutes are pretty much in English.

this is a blog post as originally posted on locallytype

Bing on the Roof

It’s been a while… a pretty busy one. But I wanted to share a couple of upcoming events I’ll be at. First one will be PubCon in Las Vegas. Just booked my flights and Hotel today and am really looking forward to meet a lot of people and spend some “quality time” at the casino PubCon will be all networking for me – so nothing to organize and 100& free schedule till now. Please do let me know if ur attending and want to meet for a chat or a coffee or just say hi.

Next up will be SES Berlin just the week after… (dammed that’s pretty close) Stefan Weitz will be here in Germany again. First in Munich for a Münchner Kreis  appearance and a couple of surrounding events including an exclusive dinner event.  There will be a lecture of Stefan at the FH Würzburg as well as an DPE event here at the Microsoft offices in Munich. After the weekend we will be off to SES Berlin where Stefan will be speaking. I’m kind of still working on organizing a booth and some giveaways – any good idea drop me a line (am thinking Bing Shirts till now).

this is a blog post as originally posted on locallytype

SES Berlin & PubCon in Las Vegas

this is a blog post as originally posted on locallytype

Bing TV ad – start ur engine …

Live was going to be bing and now bing is live

Go check it out! Bing.com

this is a blog post as originally posted on locallytype

Bing is Live now – in the open…