Bing has launched a recipes search using partners to provide results in a content section hosted at the search engine, in addition to serving up algorithmic results for How to Bake Chicken, you get partner provided, hosted results from three recipe sites on Bing.com

I’ve always wondered why both Yahoo and MSN have focused on partners to provide content on their portal, rather than sending you directly to the search results. The intent has always been to keep you on Yahoo or MSN, while Google gives you results quickly and sends you directly to the destination in search results.

The results for “Skirt Steak” displayed in the video screenshots (video below) show you a prominent “Recipes: Skirt Steak” link with photographs, which encourages you to click through to partner links. Currently those partners are FatSecret.com, MyRecipes.com, and Delish.com

Great for the partner sites, but probably a move making other recipe sites (especially niche recipe sites) angry and frustrated that their organic search results are now pushed further down the page and they have to fight harder for business on Bing.

I suspect that if Google responds with a recipes move, that the results will be organically derived, and will send visitors directly to the destination sites, rather than keeping them at Google.

I’m not a cook, nor do I play one on the internet, so I’m not likely to explore this further and monitor how it’s received. The move though is instructive as to business approach differences at Google and Bing/Yahoo.

Below is the video from the Bing Blog where the announcement was made this week.