Bing trumps Google on finding what you actually need

August 13, 2011 By Mike Flacy

Even after the release of Panda to reduce the amount of spam-laden search results in Google, it appears that the public finds Bing to be more successful at providing accurate, useful search results.

After Microsoft launched Bing in 2009, everyone was aware that it it had a long road to become a sizable competitor to Google’s search engine. While it still has a ways to go in regards to percentage of search users, Experian Hitwise believes that Bing is more accurate than Google for searches. Both Bing and Yahoo! (which is powered by Bing) sent a user to a site over 80 percent of the time over the month of July. In comparison, about 2 in every 3 searches on Google resulted in a user clicking on a search result. It’s clear that Bing and Yahoo are more successful at sending users to the right places than Google.

These new figures can work to Microsoft’s advantage when selling keyword-services on Bing. With a proven higher click-through rate, they can compete in quality over quantity. However, Google still controls the amount of searches on the Internet at a sizable 66 percent. Twenty-eight percent of searches come from engines powered by Bing and the remaining six percent are from much smaller competitors. Seventy-two percent of Bing traffic comes from Internet Explorer users as the default search engine for the browser is Bing. Search terms ranging five to eight words or more increased slightly from June to July while one word searches still comprised the majority of searches, specifically one in four.

Bing has consistently been a money pit for Microsoft to the tune of millions of dollars. However, the company recently laid out a long-term plan for the service that includes a desktop app, web apps and increased Facebook integration. Microsoft officials pointed to stronger HTML5 usage in web applications specifically designed to work with the Bing search engine. The desktop application will be somewhat similar to Google Desktop, but with stronger ties to Twitter and Facebook for social messaging.

Showing 11 comments

robsclone at 9:49pm 3rd September 2011 This report seems to forget that a large number of Google search results ARE the content people wish for. The amount of times i look up important events, perform calculations, look up definitions, browse photos, etc.The Google result page IS "the right place" for many Google searches, no clicking required.
J Ortiz at 7:20am 3rd September 2011 So... I hope you realize that Experian Hitwise is a marketing firm and thus could not be trusted to provide objective results.Mike Flacy, you are dismissed to go back to journalism school.
TechFreak at 9:35am 14th August 2011 Google search results are garbage. I can't find anything on it anymore. All I get are shopping results, scrapper sites and even UK results (where in the U.S. WTF?).
Matt Elmstedt at 7:35am 14th August 2011 Especially since Microsoft redesigned their search (see marketing people, I don't even remember what it was called before Bing), I have noticed most of what I want is returned and faster than Google. Exceptions, when Bing doesn't find it Google has it but only after three pages of paid advertisements or "were you thinking of" types of responses.I also prefer Bing's image search over Google.Let's see an expansion of photosynth integration, Silverlight, and Street Side on Bing Maps (binged.it/BingMapsOvrView). Seeing these three fully deployed in a city (I think only 3 are well saturated currently) makes Google StreetView look like a child's toy.It's interesting Google produced a strikingly similar image searching tool a few months after Bing had success with it's image search tool. Certainly a coincidence.
Christian Dillon at 5:52am 14th August 2011 bing blows.
Joshua Fields at 5:29am 14th August 2011 Who here has a Windows Phone? Lol.
Joshua Fields at 5:28am 14th August 2011 Lol @ dan. Plus, Google trumps microsoft on life.
Trip Affleck at 11:01pm 13th August 2011 it's the AOL of search engines; it's for people that can't navigate the real thing.
Trip Affleck at 10:32pm 13th August 2011 Bing is for the same people that use their GPS to get to work everyday.
Damon Schmitt at 10:14pm 13th August 2011 That's not a useful metric at all.If the average Google user is looking for something more specific or obscure, and the average Bing user just wants to find Netflix or Facebook, then of course the Bing users will get more first page clickthroughs.Someone needs to learn to science.
Garrett Glass at 9:57pm 13th August 2011 bullshit, Bing gives the most fucking random search results.