Could Bing seriously challenge Google?

19 replies
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King Kaufman is a sports writer who says he reads Scripting News to learn about football. That's one of the highest compliments someone can pay me, cause I often think in terms of football analogies when it comes to tech.

So here's a football analogy! ...

Google and Microsoft are playing a game of football in a stadium called Search. My guess is that Google doesn't think they're actually playing a game, or if they do, they aren't worried about Microsoft gaining any significant yardage. Kind of like the way Alabama beat LSU earlier this week.

They might be right, but Google is letting one of Microsoft's wide receivers go uncovered. You'd think if Microsoft was smart they'd throw the ball to him and see if perhaps it might turn into a touchdown.

Here's the deal. Google's search is getting cluttered with pointless crap. I think they forgot that when Google launched all the existing search engines were similarly cluttered, and they offered two things. 1. Something really nice called Page Rank and 2. No clutter.

Now I'm pretty sure that Google thinks their magic, whatever that might be, will keep people using Google no matter how much crap they shovel onto the search page. Maybe that was true up to a point, but Google is now over the line. A search engine that did two things would get me to at least seriously try it (and nothing has been able to do that for me since Google rolled out in 1998). Here are the two things.

1. A super-clean bare-bones interface.

2. A bonded promise that it will stay that way forever.

The bonded part is important. I don't think anyone should switch or even think of switching unless the move was irreversible. It has to be that way forever. We could agree to some small amount of advertising on the search results, in the right margin, and clearly labeled. But beyond that, nothing but search results and whitespace.

The bond would have to be something that hurt if they gave it up. A lot of cash put in escrow to be paid to the ACLU or NASA or split among 15 universities. Something like that. A very large amount of money. Otherwise we'd be crazy to give them a chance, they would just bait and switch us.

I wonder if Microsoft has ever done a study to see how many people switched from Windows to Mac because of all the shovelware and malware that was inundating Windows? I bet it was a lot of people. I promise you that's why I switched. I don't think the Mac is any easier to use. Except there are no viruses. My Windows machine was impossible to use because of all the crap.

Google is now in the same place. Enough is enough. Is anyone going to step up and take advantage of their mistake?
Scripting News: Could Bing seriously challenge Google?

Do you think that google made a mistake?
#bing #challenge #google
  • Profile picture of the author Dentist
    I think Bing could be a serious competition for Google but gradually for these reasons:
    - Bing is the default search engine on Facebook. More people will be on Facebook and more people will search on Facebook.
    - Bing is the default search engine for IE that comes with every windows. If I were at Microsoft shoes, I would work on a better web browser that IE. It sucks. It could bring a lot more search users to Bing.
    - Microsoft is serious about Bing the same as Google is serious about G+. None of them does a great job at that, but they are humongous companies with huge resources. When they are serious about a business, they can be serious competition.
    - Minor: Bing provides more relevant searches in some categories. For example in my experience it does a better job when you look for a local theater.
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    • Profile picture of the author addlinkweb
      Originally Posted by Dentist View Post

      I think Bing could be a serious competition for Google but gradually for these reasons:
      - Bing is the default search engine on Facebook. More people will be on Facebook and more people will search on Facebook.
      - Bing is the default search engine for IE that comes with every windows. If I were at Microsoft shoes, I would work on a better web browser that IE. It sucks. It could bring a lot more search users to Bing.
      - fb is going to launch its own search engine, so there will be no place of bing in the future
      - who uses IE ? more than 70% of people in the world uses Mozila and Chrome and they have Google Search Engine as a Homepage
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  • Profile picture of the author ishuvonet
    Well I strongly believe their recent update is a great mistake since searchers are getting lots of irrelevant results and thats provide a negative user experience and It opens an opportunity for competitive sites like yahoo or bing too.
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    I would like to see Bing challenge themselves.
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  • Profile picture of the author johnnyflex
    Yes, google serps are all crappy nowadays. Just check "BUY NEW PANTS" all of the results in there are all QA sites and a crappy blog. I say, google made a big mistake in their new update.
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    • Profile picture of the author JeanneLynn
      If Google keeps hiding good search results, I think it's possible for Bing to obtain a greater share of the market.

      I used to be a paid moderator for an online deal forum. We used to laugh at a couple small deal forums that were trying to compete with us. The forum I worked for started slipping in user satisfaction and now one of the those smaller forums is the bigger fish.
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    • Profile picture of the author rahmanpaidar
      Originally Posted by johnnyflex View Post

      Yes, google serps are all crappy nowadays. Just check "BUY NEW PANTS" all of the results in there are all QA sites and a crappy blog. I say, google made a big mistake in their new update.
      Yes, Google might have made mistake by this new algo. But a few notes:

      - A large part of their serp are intact pre and post PANDA and PENGUIN update.

      - It seems only competitive niches are now suffering from the algo.

      - Sites in competitive niches have enough budget to go for adwords.

      - The keyword you mentioned "BUY NEW PANTS" is not enough competitive since there is no adwords sites in there, at least at the moment.

      So all in all, they've done a good job in favour of their company without losing any search result relevancy for most queries except than the competitive keywords that need budget to go for adwords.
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  • Profile picture of the author SeoKungFu
    They ( the Gorg ) are simply starting to fail "a lil" and mess things up as of late, and this will naturally and slowly ( habits don't fade away fast ) turn more and more people off and towards alternatives; so far bing is not just catching up as growth/market share but also does a great job with quality of the search results.
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  • Profile picture of the author Bond Girl
    I for one am rooting for Bing to move on up and take more of the search engine share so that G does not have such a monopoly!
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    • Profile picture of the author tylerherman
      Have you ever used Bing. The results are pretty terrible. Say what you want about Google but they are years ahead of any of their competition.
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      • Profile picture of the author johnnyflex
        Originally Posted by tylerherman View Post

        Have you ever used Bing. The results are pretty terrible. Say what you want about Google but they are years ahead of any of their competition.
        Well, ive been using Bing nowadays and its quite good, much better than google for now.

        Yes, you can defend your google all you want because I know you are BIAS. but you cant still deny the fact that the result at google are much crappier than before. Ive have seen several forums(not related to SEO) that they complain about crappy google result
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        • Profile picture of the author mosthost
          Originally Posted by johnnyflex View Post

          Well, ive been using Bing nowadays and its quite good, much better than google for now.

          Yes, you can defend your google all you want because I know you are BIAS. but you cant still deny the fact that the result at google are much crappier than before. Ive have seen several forums(not related to SEO) that they complain about crappy google result
          I can deny your statement. The results don't look all that different to me on average searches.
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          • Profile picture of the author johnnyflex
            Originally Posted by mosthost View Post

            I can deny your statement. The results don't look all that different to me on average searches.
            Yes, its just you. So, nuff said.
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  • Profile picture of the author ThatAblaze
    OP, I really think that logic that you quoted there could better be applied to facebook than google. If I knew of a viable alternative to facebook's horrible user experience I would jump ship in a heartbeat.

    Of course the only real alternative is already a large company, which just doesn't work for me either.
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  • Profile picture of the author Oracle_320th
    back then Google beat Yahoo because Yahoo was so messed up with their search results, well history repeats itself. We'll see what the future will bring...

    One thing that I know this is great momentum for Facebook that is about to launch their own search engine and Bing.
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  • Profile picture of the author seobuzz
    Most of us would agree that Google's recent update did no good. Unless it opening the market for 'negative SEO'. If google does not correct itself, a new search engine may take away the position (Bing also has chance, it made some good changes recently)
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  • Profile picture of the author AnmolJ
    Yahoo Is Going To Be Bought By Bing In Some Time ! I Think So That Will Give Bing A Boost!
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  • Profile picture of the author dracoboar
    Facebook is only going to ignore serp revenue for so long

    If Facebook launched a SE or signed a deal with bing marketshare would change overnight.

    Its not if its when
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  • I do support BING for challenging Google as always Google can't be number one.
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