With Google’s unchecked domination of the Search business, it’s sometimes tough to remember that there are viable alternatives out there.
Indeed, Google currently controls a commanding 72% of the search market, according to Experian Hitwise. However, the search market is seeing an interesting shift right now, as Yahoo continues to lose ground to Bing. With the recent US and EU approval of a search deal between Yahoo and Bing, it appears that the search market will soon become a two horse race between Google and Bing.
Bing has taken the fight to Google, and amazingly, Bing has Google beaten in a few big areas.
Bing Cashback
Bing’s biggest attraction for many power users is their cashback program. Microsoft organized partnerships with many online retailers to pay a fraction of the purchase price of items bought through Bing back to the consumer. This would be a nice feature even if it only netted you a couple of dollars back here and there. However, the program offers cashback rewards of up to 35% from certain stores, and includes such marquee names as eBay, Newegg, Dell, Barnes and Noble, Footlocker, Gap, The Home Depot and other major retailers. Also, if you search for products in Bing, it will give you a normal list of results, but it will also indicate stores which it has a cashback deal with.
This helps to direct users towards these cashback deals. These deals can net shoppers huge cashback rewards, like the $250 I got back from the purchase of a laptop this winter.
Visual Search
Another one of Bing’s major draws (as this ad shows off) is the Visual Search feature. While it’s definitely still in beta (and not really beta in the Google sense) what it can do is rather impressive. For the queries it has information for, such as yoga poses or Olympic events, it displays a series of related pictures sorted in alphabetical order.
As you scroll through the list of pictures, you can click on any picture to search it. This feature is only going to get more impressive as the team at Bing expands it.
Bing Maps with Photosynth
This newly announced feature is currently the killer app of the Bing suite. Before this feature was introduced, Bing Maps was a very similar product to Google Maps. While it doesn’t have the street-level coverage of Google’s Streetview or the features of Google Transit, it does have a very attractive zoom to Streetside (Microsoft’s Streetview) feature, as well as the ability to view aerial photos taken at an angle. However, the recent integration of Microsoft’s Photosynth has set Bing Maps apart from Google Maps. The feature, which runs on Silverlight, displays collections of photos stitched together into a panorama.
These panoramas, which are uploaded by users on Microsoft’s Photosynth site, often give amazingly detailed views of the outside and inside of locations all over the world (including Olympic venues). The results, to put it bluntly, can be spectacular.
Bing’s searches have one key advantage over Google’s. When you’re paging through the results Bing returns, you can click on an arrow that appears to the right of the search and get a preview of the content on the page. For example, the preview for Apple’s website provides links for all of Apple’s major products and includes support information. For a business, the contact info, hours and other important information is usually listed.
It’s a very useful feature, allowing you to get the information you need without having to sift through page after page, especially if you’re in a hurry.
Bing Video
As a video aggregator, Bing Video has Google Video whipped. Google Video searches mostly Youtube and Google Video videos, while incorporating the odd Vimeo or Dailymotion video here and there. Bing also includes these videos, but also includes clips from major network shows and Hulu. The best part, however, is the way the videos are presented. Google’s video search aesthetic isn’t particularly well-suited for video medium either, with results pages that look like crude versions of Youtube’s search result pages. By comparison, Bing’s results pages look much sleeker.
In addition, when you mouse over a video’s thumbnail on these results pages, a preview of the video begins to play. It’s an incredibly useful feature.
The differences between the two search engines are emblematic of the differences between the two companies. Google’s philosophy basically comes down to delivering a lot of relevant information to the searcher. While you sometimes have to wade through a bit of information to get to what you’re looking for, Google makes sure you have everything you could possibly need immediately at hand.
Bing, on the other hand, seems to focus on delivering the basic information with less effort required than Google. This is great when you need quick summaries of a website or little tidbits like phone numbers and addresses, but it isn’t as useful when you want more complete information. They’re focused on making the information more accessible, often at the cost of volume.
So what does this all mean? Is Bing a Google Killer? No. Definitely not. Is Bing a viable alternative to Google? Yes. It definitely is. The sites are designed for fundamentally different functions. Google is still where you should turn for research, among many other things. But where Windows Live Search was once a pathetic joke, Bing can now be considered a serious search engine. Even for Google diehards (like me), Bing is worth giving a shot. It’s certainly different, but not in a bad way.
Just let’s put it as first then; It just ain’t google…
Do a side by side search with google and bing. with google you get results, with bing you get adverts. Try for yourself
It’s like the most advanced ferrari will ever see but with a ford-T engine.
Every now and then I do a comparison and bing search results often suck -> http://www.bing-vs-google.com/
That’s interesting. In the course of writing this piece, I performed over 100 searches with Bing and Google for comparison’s sake and I received largely the same answers for both.
I hear ya, I would say the same thing too, when i get paid :)
Hahaha. I wish I was that influential.
I actually went into writing that piece thinking I was really going to have to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find stuff Bing did better. But I really didn’t. Frankly, given how long I’ve used Google, I was shocked.
Google’s still better for search. No question. But Bing is much more of a competitor than I had previously thought.
Bing was just all about hype. They threw in hundreds of millions of marketing dollars to drive users to it. Without that, users won’t even give it a try. Bing cashback is another failure. You hardly heard Microsoft talking about it these days. After hundreds of millions dollars spent on this program, I don’t think it has gained more than 0.1% share. I overheard a director of Bing mentioned they have 1 million cashback users at one of the retail conferences. This is a very small number.
The Bing cashback user experience is terrible. Sometimes I can go directly to the retailer site and sometimes a pop up box will appear asking me for my email address. Can’t they get their act together to improve the user experience?
In the mean time, I still prefer to use Amazon or Google Shopping.
so microsoft are sponsoring the next web conference then?
I’ll wait and see
No doubt dude, Bing is da Bomb.
Jess
http://www.total-anonymity.cz.tc
Ah the only thing it is not really good at is basic search and that is why people will keep using Google
I think the Bing search engine is growing more popular every week.
Although I’m still an avid Google user, I agree that Bing is definitely a viable alternative.
Though the cashback program isn’t equally appealing to everyone, it’s catchy.
It provides the same reward to those that make the effort to clip $0.50 coupons out of newspapers—the older, wiser, more thrifty audience. That segment of the market could be the main driving force for this search engine.
Great article, Jacob!
Did you receive compensation to write this from any PR firm or entity? You should disclose this if you have…this reads like talking points straight from MSFT marketing.
these comments are largely from (obviously) MS haters – there is a decided lack of objectivity in the reasons they don’t like Bing – in the same way that apple fans rave about macs as though they are mysteriously superior in someway – these people would hate anything MS does no matter how cool it was – so don’t be offended by their lack of enthusiasm – their comments are useless if not scientifically verified.
I too have done 100′s of side by side search comparisons using the big 3 and gotten almost the same results with all topics – sometimes prioritized differently but all there. the expanded Bing info panel is actually very useful.
the other features you mentioned are cool – I like being able to instantly preview videos with having to launch the thing in a new window.
the maps panorama function sounds cool too.
thanks for the informative article.
Bing refuses to index my sites, doing fine on yahoo and google though.
Well, your blog is called “Sore Butt Cheeks.” It could be indexed there, just way far down the page.
Which platform you used for tests ? Windows + IE, try Linux or Mac, i don`t believe that you`ll be able to get 100 searches without restarting your browser because of freezing`s.
Consider that – your readers also use search engines almost everyday.
As far as the user’s point of view Bing is doing the right thing. Google dominates the internet and there should be some one to compete their technology, and i guess MS can only do this. From the user point of view this is a good sign, as there wont be a single company rule the internet. let be more socialistic approach. your point is rightly said.
“This feature is only going to get more impressive as the team at Bing expands it.”
“The results, to put it bluntly, can be spectacular.”
I’m not saying you’re biased or received any sort of incentive to write favourably towards Bing. Let’s just say if you tone down the hyperbolae you might come across as a bit more persuasive.
Kell, I was pretty impressed with the Photosynth feature. Bing Maps had a photosynth of a huge, incredibly ornate cathedral a couple of blocks away from where I live and I was shocked at how much detail it was able to pick up. I actually saw stuff on the exterior of that building that I hadn’t noticed before, and I walk by it at least once a day.
I had pretty low expectations coming into the article, though, so that probably has something to do with why I was so impressed.
Hands down google. Its simple and gives you great results. That’s all we need. Sure all that other hi-tech photo stuff is cool don’t get me wrong but I don’t have time to play around with pictures I just want results and google gets them.
I think it is a little too early to say that one is better than another as Bing is too new. Give it some time… especially with its hired talent, explosive marketing push and the Yahoo! acquisition pending.
Well may be Bing is better with these 5 services. But be real, the internet is task driven. If you put yourself on the market as a search engine, do Search. The user wants a result for their search query. Unfortunately I don’t get what I am used to when searching with Google. I hope it becomes better. I think there should be good (reasonable) alternative next to Google. Yahoo’s results are even worse, they are often even off topic.
I am not exactly a Google fan, but their search experience is excellent.
This is all well and good but until Bing’s search results become as reliable of Google’s, I won’t be changing.
I will not disagree but what about the search results? when i search a term i almost automatically use Google.
I agree, I dismissed Microsoft to begin with but there are some nice little things that set them aside. I think this link needs to be included in the Bing Maps reference from a recent TED talk. Check out around 5mins in, when your draw drops!
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/766
Bing’s search results are poor. Some of their services are useless such as Visual search, Bing Shopping & Bing cashback. Their shopping products are very limited compared to Google. Probably only 10% of what Google has. Cashback is a big failure. My friends who work at some of the retailers told me Microsoft gave them millions of dollars to participate in the Bing program. Without those incentives, no one will want to sell using cashback. I think eBay got something like $15M from Microsoft. I wish they can use those money to hire some good engineers to improve the product.
Nice post and I am also a big fan of the Bing search results page as well, it’s also where I believe Bing has made big improvement over Google from a productivity point of view. Check out my detailed blog post on why the Bing results page is a big time saver for me.
http://www.search1x.com/2009/06/14/bing-search-improves-on-the-search-results-page/
yep, i really think ur right, my classmates have been dabateing about it since september and
my pridiction is that bing is going to win. Microsoft is such a good company and my dad works there,
so i think whatever it creates is the best and im sure that my team is going to win.
I printed this article and showed all the fans of microsoft, and they all nodded their little heads and yes,
indeed.
Bing is the best!!:)
Seattle Storms new sponsors, and that is all I need to know. Any company that supports my team is going to get my support.
hahahahahaha
i like ms i love the coms and the xbox but i hate bing i type a word in and nothing happens with google i type a word in and it gives a big list of all the things i can add to it for instance i type in guild with bing and it stays there just being guild with google i type in guild it opens a list of guild wars wow guilds list of wow guilds i then add wars and it gives me guild wars guild war review guild wars trail guild wars 2 guild wars 2 re date and i dont have to type in all of those thing myself and i found out a lot of things that way by typeing something and being giveing a list of all the things i can add or it just plan saves time type in one word you get the 6 words you wanted and you dont have to worry that you spelled one wrong and you will be takeing to a porn site that has happend to me when i was useing bing
BING because its not google
Interesting article. Thanks! I guess I need to start looking at Bing. :-)
Put simply:
Because
It’s
Not
Google.
B.I.N.G.
Both Google and Bing are a great search engine. Let the people think about what search engine they would like to use, Comment on any is your opinion. I use Both Google and Bing makes no difference to me.
on the text search search criteria, google’s on tops. However, on the image search criteria, Bing’s image search is much better than Google’s. It gives better options, has a great interface, and user does not have to go to multiple pages (clicking ‘next’) as on google.
I was pleasantly surprised to find google image search now incorporating bing’s feature as I had listed above.
Having skimmed through a few comments on here I am rather disappointed with people’s views. I think it’s a case of people having used Google for so long they don’t want to give nor admit that another search engine may just be better. I was the same, until I tried Bing!
I am an web designer/SEO specialist and have been tweaking a few of my client’s websites and what I have noticed each and every time is that Bing returns better results than Google. Having typed certain phrases for these websites they appear not only on page one of Bing but at the very top every time!! Typing the same on Google is more hit and miss. Sometimes i get page one, sometimes page two. I think this has something to do with the different algorithms the two search engines use.
I would suggest people really give Bing a chance as you may be pleasantly surprised.
Justin, you are basically saying that because Bing returns your clients’ websites, it is a better search engine. That’s not terribly persuasive, I’m afraid.
I wasn’t convinced so I tested it out. I like bing. I like google better but maybe because that’s what I’m used too. I’m going to give Bing a few weeks.
The BING thing; Bing! Bang! Boom! Bing gives you the thing and maybe some other things, after that your your own wing; Like waiting for the phone to ring;Microsoft of everything wants to be KING. they hope to be like Boomers from Sumer who whose praises sing and registers Ka-Ching full of Bling! Bling! Bling!
Google gives you oo-oo-odles and oo-oo-odles of things to oogle, this thing, that thing and things barely loogle (uh, n.b. vide Google’s Idea of “Community Standards”)and still all are almost always ooouseful. Info Structures Erected via recursive looks perfected, from searches elective quantum like entangled and interconnected helps ideas selected, presentations happily given and accepted. All go to dinner happy and not dejected.
Now the prose part if you can’t get what I admit is an abstruse attempt at poetry. It’s not whether bing (as they style themselves in lower case)is better than Google it needs to be different from Google. To a certain extent bing is good for things that what short quick answers. Google is clearly much better for detailed research. The fact that on e trips over obscure references in Google which the bing commercials poked fun is one of Google’s strength. If I find myself “I didn’t know that…” in a field I am already knowledgeable and going off in a “hypertexty direction” and chasing down references and getting new idea I consider that an embodiment of what was hoped for many years ago (giggle 1982!!!)when people thought of what a hypertext system would and could be. Even if Ted Nelson calls the World Wide Web something like “an ftp(file transfer protocol for those who are not truly ascended ancients(giggle);) program with lipstick. The big thing is WWW works; Google works well;bing has features that could be improved and make it fill a very large and useful niche and be a useful quick research tool but Microsoft has thing “We wanna be King Thing” problem.