twitterbingThree years ago, Microsoft was at odds with Twitter in regard to including tweets in Bing search results.

Now, though, it seems those issues have officially gone away.

Bing is now featuring Twitter hashtags and handles in its results as part of its exclusive partnership with the social media giant that was inked last November.

Certain content from Twitter was already showing up in Bing search queries, but now users will be able to search directly for hashtags and handles. As you can see to the right, when searching for last night’s “#BETAwards,” Bing offered recent tweets for the first result.

Bing also added a new feature that shows related-tweets for celebrity queries. For example, when you search for “Ben Affleck,”  you’ll see tweets about Ben Affleck on the first page of results.

As far as which tweets actually show up, Microsoft uses a combination of a tweet’s popularity, how new it is, and how legitimate the tweet’s author is. If you’re looking for a more extensive way to browse certain topics on Twitter, the site has its own search engine here.

Google once included Twitter content in its search results, but for the most part stopped doing so in 2011.

Related: Twitter using Bing to translate tweets automatically 

Like what you're reading? Subscribe to GeekWire's free newsletters to catch every headline

Job Listings on GeekWork

Find more jobs on GeekWork. Employers, post a job here.