The company says it’s just performing a test on its search engine

Jan 5, 2013 00:01 GMT  ·  By

Even though Microsoft has chosen to remain tight-lipped on this, it appears that the company is now working on a new Bing feature that would place competition links under specific search results.

Surprisingly, this new feature has been tested on the “Google” search query, so some of the users who searched for the Mountain View-based company with Bing also got to see some links pointing to Facebook, Craiglist and eBay, as Matt McGee of Search Engine Land discovered.

While Microsoft said it was only a test, it may very well be another attack aimed at its long-time rival, as directing users to some alternative services may, in the end, hurt Google.

At this point, the feature is no longer available, but don’t be surprised if similar search options are tested again in the future.