Is Microsoft’s New Search Engine Bing Good Enough?

Microsoft has spent the last several years running around in circles when it comes to competing with the Google juggernaut in the search space. However, recent moves may have finally given the giant from Redmond a shot at earning some of that search market share it so desperately craves.

 

Are Bing Results As Good As Google Results?

The consensus emerging from the “tests” of journalists and pundits is that Bing’s search results are vastly improved over Microsoft’s previous search engine, Live Search, which was at least better than the search engine Microsoft had before that. Of course, that isn’t exactly high praise in either case.

The key measurement of search worth continues to be the market leader Google, whose search engine accounts for over 65% of all searches according to most measurements. Microsoft has been a distant third in those rankings until recently. Yahoo Search was the second highest ranked search engine until the company inexplicably decided that trying to squeeze money out of the plethora of free content elsewhere would be better than having millions of search visitors every month.

Microsoft and Yahoo have decided that Microsoft will do the searches, and Yahoo will do … whatever it is that Yahoo does these days.

Analysts have long contended that the only way to build sustainable market share in the search engine world is to have search results that are at least as good as Google’s search results. Otherwise, users trying out new search engines, like Bing, would simply revert to their old search engine (Google) when the new one failed to deliver.

 

Bing vs. Google

As an unscientific test, I posed a handful of searches that have given me some trouble in the past. For example, if you have children you are probably interested in how the schools are in an area you might be considering. If you don’t know the name of the official test administered by the state, however, you are at the mercy of the search engines to help you figure it out.

I used the Private Browsing mode in Firefox to avoid any “personalized” search results from either search engine.

Here’s what I found.

If you search for “Texas school rankings” in Google, the top result returned is the official State of Texas website school performance results. The next several results are private websites that provide the same information on sites with ads or that even require you to sign up or pay for the publicly available information.

On Bing, the first result from the official Texas government website doesn’t show up until #6, and ironically, the page that actually has the test results doesn’t show up until #8.

On the other hand, neither search manages to get the official California rankings to the #1 spot, though both have it at #3.

Over the course of several searches, I still have to give the edge to Google, though it is much less obvious than it once was.

 

The Difference? Bing Search Tries to Help

Where things get interesting, however, is when some of Bing’s new features show up.

The most worthless search results are those that come from searches in which the user puts absolutely no effort into their search. Most one-word searches fit this category, and quite a few two-word searches as well.

For example, if you search for “dogs” the search engine can’t possibly know WHAT it is that you want to know about dogs. Do you want a breed list, what to feed them, what they are, or if they are better than cats? Results displayed for these types of searches are understandably all over the place.

Ironically, these are some of the most common searches. According to studies, the user realizes that they weren’t specific enough and they return to the search engine to enter more words. Researchers estimate that the average number of searches it takes for success is four.

What Microsoft has done with Bing is try and short circuit this process. As Lisa Simpson says, “You’ll never go broke pandering to the lowest common denominator.”

Bing steps in when these non-specific searches are made and tries to help make them more specific for you. For example, if you search for my hometown, “Denver” in both search engines, you get something very different from Google and Bing.

Google does what it has always done. It displays the top ten search results as determined by its ranking algorithm. In this case, that results in the official tourist site Denver.org showing up at #1, the official city government page at #2, the official airport page at #3, the Wikipedia entry for Denver at #4, the Denver Broncos homepage at #5 and so on.

Frankly, this is an admirable effort. In the top 5 results, a search for Denver covers visiting Denver, Denver government, flying to/from Denver, info about Denver, and the most popular sports team in the city. For a large number of searchers, one of these pages is probably what you are looking for. If not, you probably realize your mistake and become one of the people that go back and add words to your search.

Bing, on the other hand, starts adding terms to your search for you.

Of the top 5 results on Bing, the top 3 are in the top 5 at Google (no airport website on Bing). Then comes a private website about Denver, and then Denver Craigslist. The last one is odd, but not out of line.

It is what happens next that is Microsoft’s big gamble in search.

The next results on the page are not search results for Denver, but rather the top search results for “Denver weather.” There are 3 of them grouped under an orange heading that says Denver Weather. Beneath that are three sites for Denver Jobs, followed by Denver Events, Denver Attractions, and Denver Hotels — all under the same orange headings.

The same search for the word Portland gives the same kind of layout, but not with the same categories. Again, Portland Weather is the first sub-search, but next is Portland Real Estate, followed by Hotels, Restaurants, and then Airport.

The same categorization is displayed down the left side in menu format along with a “Related Searches” and a Search History (which Bing makes much more evident how to turn off than Google.)

 

So… Is Bing Better Than Google?

So, do Bing’s new features make it a better search engine than Google?

The answer will be determined by how people react to having searches suggested in this manner. Most of the results for city names are tourist or social/recreational based. If enough users appreciate this, then they may begin to view Bing as “better.”

On the other hand, people looking for more “official” type websites like the Mayor, Police, Streets (or more importantly in Denver, snowplow operations) might find these suggestions to be unintuitive, or maybe even insulting.

It seems like Bing may be aiming for the all too lucrative “low-end-user” category with its inclusion of additional helpers, while still not providing more advanced features like a date based search.

In the end, whether Bing triumphs over Google may come down to how savvy the typical computer user is when it comes to searches, and whether or not they want to be spoon-fed what they don’t know.

 

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One Response to “Is Microsoft’s New Search Engine Bing Good Enough?”

• CRAWLEM Says:

  January 21st, 2010 at 3:45 pm

  Bing searches is not like searches in google.google searches is a clarified result.

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