In announcing an overhaul of MSN.com last week, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) said it would increasingly play up its Bing search engine on the portal. It’s now taking its biggest step so far on that front, by folding its MSN Video site into its Bing video search engine. Users who click on the MSN Video tab will now be redirected to an overhauled Bing video search page, where they will be able to find the content they previously accessed on MSN (See screenshot, to the left).

As for that content, Microsoft says none of it is changing. There will continue to be videos from partners, including MSNBC, Fox Sports, and National Geographic, along with some limited original programming. Microsoft had already made a major adjustment to the content on MSN Video over the summer, when it shut down the Soapbox user-generated video uploading service.

Microsoft is, however, adding some new features to the Bing Video search page, including a “dim lights” function, that makes everything in the browser go dark, with the exception of the video itself.

About 250 million videos are streamed on MSN Video a month, so the move of the site’s content to Bing should provide an immediate influx of traffic to the search engine. Building Bing’s market share is the Microsoft online division’s top priority, so it will be interesting to see whether Microsoft will merge any other MSN verticals with Bing. One obvious possibility could be News, since Bing offers a way to search for articles, although that could potentially disrupt Microsoft’s relationship with MSNBC.com.

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