Just announced today on the Bing blog is news that Microsoft’s Bing will deepen its relationship with Facebook on search, and “will soon provide Facebook users with a more complete search experience by providing full access to great Bing features beyond a set of links, including richer answers combined with tools that help customers make faster, smarter decisions”.

Bing will also extend its cooperation with Facebook outside of the US, “bringing the Bing-Facebook search integration to the more than 400 million people using Facebook around the world”.

At the same time, Microsoft’s partnership with Facebook to provide advertising to the site is ending.  According to Jon Tinter, General Manager, Bing, on the blog post:

…we made the mutual decision that Facebook would take over responsibility for selling display advertisements on its own site. We have been working together on advertising for a long time, creating the best experience for FB users and advertisers. Given the kinds of advertisements that make sense within a product as unique as Facebook, it just made more sense for them to take the lead on this part of their advertising strategy. MS will continue to provide search advertisements to Facebook.

While the advertising deal, which has been widely expected to end soon, will be somewhat of a blow to Microsoft, it’s definitely good news for Bing that the search partnership will not only continue, but be greatly expanded.