SAN FRANCISCO — Microsoft Corp.’s Bing search engine is increasing its emphasis on the recommendations shared within Facebook’s online social network to give people something they can’t find on Google’s dominant search engine. Starting Monday afternoon, Bing’s search results will vary depending on whether the person making a request is logged into Facebook’s online social network at the same time.
For example, Bing’s standard ranking system might analyze a search request about the band “U2” and relegate a link pertaining to the music group to the fourth or fifth page of results if the query came from someone who wasn’t logged into Facebook at the time. But that same link might appear at the top of Bing’s first search page if the query were made by a logged-in Facebook user and a few friends in the requestor’s social circle had pressed Facebook’s “Like” button on the site.
