londrum - 5:10 pm on Sep 16, 2011 (gmt 0)

i just did a little test to see whether bing's layout really is that different to google's. I searched for "new york hotels" on both, and counted up the number of ads and links to googles/bings own products. it was done at 1024 resolution, and i only counted stuff above the fold. bing actually comes out worse on a lot of the things.

number of ads visible
google = 4 (+7 sitelinks in the ads)
bing = 9

number of sites visible in the serps
google = 0 (+3 more visible in local listings)
bing = 1 (+2 more visible in local listings)

links to their own products visible in the serps/local listings
google = 9
bing = 4

total area visible for the serps
google = 4.4 square inches (all of which is taken up by local listings)
bing = 5.6 square inches (of which 3.4 square inches is taken up by local listings)

total area visible for the ads
google = 6.2 square inches (an extra 4.2 square inches of ad space is given over to their local listings map)
bing = 6.9 square inches