Bing algorithm

[vibelingo]

What is up with Bing? I have a couple of  small, but well-optimized Wordpress sites that dropped from top 3 to outside of top 50 in ranking for a list of key phrases in Bing, whereas in Google the very same sites had a positive development for the same phrases. I also work with a rather large, but (at the moment) poorly optimized site, and this site went from outside of top 50 to top 3 for several reasonably competitive key phrases! This should teach me not to take a vacation, I guess...

[Francisco_Meza]

Hey, I noticed I took a BIG hit in Bing today as well. My ranking reports for Google and Yahoo are fine, but Bing looks like a LOT of red down arrows.

[RobertFisher]

Ohhh, the magic question.... We are following about 20 smaller sites on Bing in a given vertical for professional practices. One of the clients is a personal friend and I happen look at his rankings on about half a dozen good terms for his profession. I was stunned when I saw he was ..... absent with drops of 8 to 40, 6 to 32, 7 to 41, etc. These are terms we had been tracking since August and had brought him up to over a couple of months. In about the last 3 weeks we have seen a significant downturn. 
Oddly, when look at competitors, we see across the board that there will be some who do not move at all and some that all of a sudden fall as well. So, yesterday, we picked 4 random (not statistically, but to us) sites all within Law and set up the following: Each day we are running rankings on each site for all engines for 4 significant keyword terms - Keyword A, B, C, D for Site 1 , Different Law type for Site 2 with different keywords, etc. In other words none of the sites are competing. For each we picked 3 competitors (none matching in any of the four sets) and, again, our random choice. We are going to follow the competitors as well for the same terms.
Obviously, we will find nothing verifiable from this but hope to find any type of pattern or similarity in those who do or do not move. At this point we are merely trying to establish a general heading.
While this does not provide an answer, at least I feel like I am moving toward.......something. We will adjust and keep you posted.

(I am wondering now if you gave me a clue) - the sites we are seeing the movement in are WP, but we have other Wordpress sites that have not. I am going to look at competitive sites and see if the ones that dropped are as well. Part two given pervasiveness would be to look at code for theme, etc. Will let you know.

[KnutDSvendsen]

I run a branded furniture site and what I see is that brand and brand associated keywords are improving. Possible that Bing has it's own 'Panda' update that favors brands and brand+product.

[CoreyNorthcutt]

This is exactly right..  there was actually a Search Engine Land post not too long ago with a title exactly along the lines of "Bing Has It's Own Version of Panda"

[vibelingo]

thanks! So far I have no better explanation than "size matters". I also have a small non-Wordpress site (well optimized) that took a hit in Bing, except for one key phrase on a sub page that jumped 48 places. Comparing this, to another "A grade" optimized sub page on the same site that slipped 48 places, the difference is that the one "going up " is a slightly competitive phrase and the one "going down" is a highly competitive one...