As with all other thing that hugely affects our lives, there have been diverse views on Bing, especially amongst the tech/search savvy crowd, and webmasters in general. Sounds like your regular revolution doesn’t it?

Microsoft’s Bing release has however proved to be more than the average revolution, drawing widespread discourse from literally every corner of the globe, with many scrutinizing Bing, and offering (mostly negative) comments about the Search Engine, almost always in comparison to Google.

Only two days after the official release announcement, Bing had already come under intense fire from “search experts”, with many doubting its ability to compete with, much less “steal” market share from Google- often citing the quality of the Search Engine’s results and speed as the two major reasons.

Two weeks down the road, Bing surprised many including the experts, recording an 11.4% rise in searcher penetration. Bing had already attained a 16.7% searcher penetration and a 12.1% share of search results pages among all US workday searches, according to stats from comscore.com.

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Microsoft Sites’ average daily penetration among U.S. searchers reached 16.7 percent during the work week of June 8-12, up 3 percentage points from the May 25-29 work week prior to Bing’s introduction

These results have however not changed the minds of some who still insist the only way Bing can cause a major upset is if it provides much better search results than Google, the basis of the argument being ;

.. the same or “good enough” probably isn’t enough for Bing to convince too many people to switch from using Google

I for one disagree, and I made it clear in an earlier post on this site that I thought Bing would effectively “terminate” Google’s search dominance, and it definitely wasn’t because of the quality of search results (where Google surpasses Bing I must add).  A comment on that post literally really summarizes my entire view of the competition;

…. Bottom line: more comprehensive results does not mean more usage, at least for me.

Let’s face it, the search results generated by both Google and Bing aren’t that far apart, as such several other factors will be key in the determining the future of the competition between them.

Whilst many experts have focused on search results in trying to determine Bing’s fate, most have ignored a very important factor in market development- BUZZ. It’s quite simple really- the more people talk about a product, the more attention is drawn to that product, and more (and more) people are forced to check it out, if for nothing else to see what all the fuss is about.

Microsoft obviously hasn’t forgotten though- and they have clearly shown that with a series of marketing campaigns which have included a “live Bingathon and fast-forwarding commercials on The Daily Show“- Bing has literally been in everyone’s faces, attracting a huge number of “trial searchers”, which according to compete.com “haven’t produced significant enough volume to impact the established market share of the top engines, which account for more than 12 billion queries”.

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The Buzz and the Competition

Instead of trying to take on Google where they are obviously stronger, Microsoft have rather focused on making Bing more robust- offering users a richer experience- thus making the search engine Exciting »» Interactive »» Engaging !!

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The Strategy

Microsoft has put in a lot of effort in ensuring that they present Bing as a “Decision Engine”- which organizes the answers you need so you can make faster, more informed decisions. As shown below, Bing displays search results, not by order of popularity, but rather organizes them into categories such as best matches, similar results, and related searches.
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Bing essentially appeals to the senses of searchers by providing features which aid the searcher in making a decision, paying particular attention to the areas of key interest to most people- Travel, Health, and Shopping.

Shopping

No doubt one of Bing’s strong points- searching for a product on Bing generates price comparisons, images, and actual user reviews, sorted and grouped to display popular features, and even cash back for that particular product from “hundreds of online retailers”.

Health

Bing does really well with regards to this touchy subject. Bing’s health results pull together information from “top medical sources health sources from all over the world” to provide concise, and accurate results. A search for Malaria for instance, generates the following useful information alongside the actual search results;

• Articles
• Treatment
• Medication
• Causes
• Pregnancy
• Test
• Images

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Travel

Apart from the useful content displayed on the Bing home page, Bing also features a special travel page which searches travel sites to find the best ticket options, offers tools to refine search results, and an impressive price predictor tool which tells you when fares will be cheapest.

Local Search

Bing provides tools that make it easier and quicker to find relevant local content, such as user reviews from local content sites, hours of operation for local businesses, one-click directions, maps and traffic reports. Each local listing in Bing provides a snapshot of information to help you make decisions, along with tools that help you refine local search results based on a number of factors, including rating, distance, type of cuisine, price, etc.

Additionally, Bing Maps lets you easily find, discover and share location information, providing useful tools such as maps and directions and view high-resolution aerial imagery.

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Google Running Scared?

It is quite clear what Microsoft intended to achieve with Bing, and they may well have succeeded. From all indications, Bing’s unexpectedly rapid growth has Google “threatened”.

Last week, the New York post reported that co-founder Sergey Brin is so rattled by the launch of Microsoft’s rival search engine that he has assembled a team of top engineers to work on urgent upgrades to his Web service.

Brin, according to sources inside the tech behemoth, is himself leading the team of search-engine specialists in an effort to determine how Bing’s crucial search algorithm differs from that used by the company he founded in 1998 with Stanford University classmate Larry Page.

New search engines have come and gone in the past 10 years, but Bing seems to be of particular interest to Sergey,” said one insider, who spoke on the condition of anonymity

The move by Brin is unusual, as it is rare these days for the Google founders to have such hands-on involvement in day-to-day operations at the company

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What Really Matters?

Maybe comprehensive search results really don’t translate into usage after all. Microsoft’s strategy has been pretty simple-

1. Create a feature-rich product that makes search a bit more exciting by offering greater usability and interaction.
2. Spend a fortune marketing that product, with the aim of getting people to check it out and experience those rich features
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I guess it’s fair to say the strategy has worked. Bing has since had everyone “lining up” to check it out, including the skeptics, many of whom believed “this Bing thing would be a giant failure”. To be quite honest, after experiencing the features on offer at Bing, you could easily forget about some of the noticeable flaws on the Search Engine.

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Everyone seems to be catching the “Bing fever”. I recently stumbled on this site which allows you compare search results from both Google and Bing in real-time. It features two separate frames which display the Google and Bing search pages side by side as shown below;

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There have already been thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of posts discussing the pros and cons of “Microsoft’s new baby”. So far the pros seem to out-weigh the cons.

As for me, I am loving it already, and it’s not just for the value added features (which are quite impressive I must add), but what it ultimately brings to the world of search, especially in relation to Google. I have never hidden my distaste for Google’s Search dominance, and I definitely am not about to start now.

Don’t get me wrong, most of my website’s traffic comes from Google, but I have never been a fan of “monopoly”- which is what Search was slowly becoming before the release of Bing- a release which threatens this dominance outright.

As a matter of fact, there have been suggestions that “perhaps Google’s Search dominance may well be over”, and these speculations might not be far-fetched after all.

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Not everyone agrees though

Google’s Matt Cutts recently took Bing on over the quality of their search results, in this Tweeting session. I’m gonna be borrowing a bit. Hope you don’t mind Chris;

Matt Cutts: Congrats to @bing on the launch! Sad to see this not-so-relevant result at #4 for [matt cutts] though: http://bit.ly/4a8Q1Y

Bing: @mattcutts anytime you want to give feedback to @bing, we’re here. I’m sitting with the devs at present. ^betsy

Bing: @mattcutts I know you are disappointed in ego search stuff tonight w/ @bing, but try ‘mtv movie awards 2009′ and see what you get. ^ba

Matt Cutts: Ouch. The #5 Bing result for [matt cutts] is spammy too: http://bit.ly/B2r5F It’s a YouTube->WordPress autogenerated blog.

Matt Cutts: @bing okay. First web result was from 2008 instead of 2009, even with 2009 in query: http://bit.ly/SToK1 . Google nails it.

Matt Cutts: @bing but doesn’t it bother you that [mtv movie awards] on Google gives great news results and 2009 url, but w/Bing I only see 2008, 2007, ?

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You can imagine what my “initial” impressions were now, can’t you? Yeah yeah yeah, Matt Cutts is simply trying to make Google look good, after all, as Chris rightly said: “He is practically the posterboy for Google, at least among the search and tech savvy crowd”, but after talking to some other people to get their opinions on this, I got a couple in the affirmative of Matt’s assertions. Here’s just one;

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Admittedly, after playing around with the tool above, I had to succumb to my pal’s views on Bing. That, for now (I think) is Google’s most powerful asset- something Bing would seriously have to work on if they want to “offer users a more refined search experience capable of satisfying queries more quickly than any rival search engine”, and have any chance of achieving this “hostile take-over”.

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Marketing Strategy or Last Ditch Survival Attempt

Google’s recent actions seem to suggest that perhaps even they feel threatened by the “new kid on the block”. Can’t help wondering if this was a perfectly executed marketing strategy aimed at keeping them ahead of the game, or just a last ditch attempt to stuff the wind out of Bing’s sails.

With recent unfolding of events,  I am tempted to incline my thoughts toward the latter. Matt Cutts’ “show-down” with Bing’s Betsy surely hasn’t done much to reduce my supsicion.

Danny Sullivan, however insists Google will stay strong Despite Bing and Yahoo. According to him,

Just because a product — toothpaste, laundry detergent, whatever — calls itself  “new and improved” does not mean consumers will abandon a brand that they already use and like. Microsoft’s new search engine Bing faces this same challenge in taking on Google. Google’s not broken; people like it, and there’s no compelling reason for them to switch to Bing, much less the more established Yahoo.

I beg to differ. Danny is a well known and hugely respected authority on all things search, and much as I hate to disagree with him, I just have to.

Also, if this article is anything to go by, Google’s dominance might indeed be coming to an end. According to this, “One News Page talked to more than 1,000 people, and 55 percent of them supposedly said that they could see themselves replacing Google with Bing as their main search engine”.

90% said they could be using the expression ‘to Bing it’ as a metaphor for conducting an internet search.

People have often registered their displeasure at Google in the past, the most memorable for me being shortly after their latest Page Rank update, which saw many sites (including ours) lose PR.

The fact of the matter in my opinion is that webmasters are just sick and tired of literally having the fates of their sites in the hands of the “almighty” Google.

Truth be told, no one likes to be controlled by the “whims and caprices” of another, a situation brought about by Google’s dominance over the years. Perhaps all that’s about to change? We’ll just have to wait and see.

Okay. I’ve said my bit, now let’s hear what you have to say.

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So what’s with the name Bing anyhow?

Well, it’s all in the branding really.  Microsoft says;

We needed a brand that was as fresh and new as our approach. It needed to be like the product — optimized for the Internet. A name that was memorable, short, easy to spell, and that would function well as a URL around the world.

Apparently, Bing is supposed to be “a new kind of search that goes beyond traditional search engines to help you make faster, more informed decisions”.

“It will do this by combining a great search engine (with powerful new features to improve your results for any query), more organized results, and unique tools to help you make important decisions. We think of Bing as a Decision Engine.”

Okay, so can Bing really take on Google in its own backyard? (which is exactly what the world of search has become really). Even Ballmer concedes;

Search and advertising, we are a small share….It’s all about Google. They have share, we don’t have share.

Hmm… Microsoft is however expected to spend $80 million to $100 million on Bing marketing, and many believe Bing will most likely take market share from Yahoo!

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So what exactly does Bing bring to the “search game” ?

Bing is not dramatically different from Google, but some people have found its results stronger. There are some visible changes:

• Bing shows a preview of the web pages in the search results when you hover your mouse pointer at the right side of the search results.
• Bing displays fewer results if it is certain that it has understood your intent. The search for “Facebook”, for example, brings up just one result linking to the site itself.
• Some search results are divided into categories. For example, if you search for the popular musician “Justin Timberlake”, you’ll get results in the categories news, songs, movies, biography, wallpaper and downloads. In addition, the search results show images, videos and the popularity of the musician.
• Wikipedia searches can be displayed inline in the search results without leaving the Bing site by clicking the “Enhanced view” link.
• Bing features a different background image every day. The image contains special hidden hotspots that lead you to more information (soon advertising?) about the image.
• Despite the background image, Bing’s homepage loads very quickly in your web browser because the search box and logo load first. You can turn off the background image.
• Bing’s video search lets you watch videos without leaving the search engine.
• Bing offers specific health, shopping and travel search engines, as well as instant answers to travel searches. For instance, the search “Vegas hotels” displays a selection of hotels in Las Vegas, including hotel stars and prices.
• Bing’s search history lets you return to your most recent searches of the last two days. This feature can be turned off to protect your privacy.

An obvious difference however, is Google’s ability to recognize misspellings and offer suggestions,which Bing has a visible lack of. For example, Bing doesn’t seem to recognize misspellings and returns no results in these cases

There have already been suggestions that Bing will be a success for Microsoft, and I must say I agree.

…. Microsoft has plenty of room to grow if they can only offer something that has some minimal value-add beyond what Google offers. Bing already does that. As soon as some search consumers see and experience the contextual sidebar searches in a Bing search, they will see how some searches can save them time on Bing, they will start using it for some of their searches, then defect back over to Google whenever a search fails on Bing.

True! Microsoft’s best bet would be to maximize the additional value Bing offers searchers.

Beyond all that, there’s just something about that name that makes me feel it surely will, even though Steve Ballmer jokes “We should have named it ‘BOOM!’”

Surely would have had a different meaning down here (if you know what I mean).

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