Are all these changes on Google in reaction to Bing?

[scottsonline]

Each time I use bing I am more impressed with the quality of the results. In many ways it appears bing is almost returning the exact same results. Good solid results pre-google and without the same rapid changes/manipulations we are all seeing in google.

Are all of these changes the result of google realizing bing is here to stay? Are they now trying to bring is the next big thing and potentially misunderstanding that it's the organic results that make the magic happen for the 2.5 billion in ad sales?

When searching for an led t* tonight it was mind boggling to see all the clutter on the google serp page. Adwords, brands listed horizontally, an organic result from the manufacturer with no description, image links to unrelated items, image ads at the top of the right column....the result was utter confusion. The good clean simplicity of google was gone. The same search on bing returned the tv from a few sites I recognized and ads from a few I didnt.

I work on a screen with 1920x1200 and it's still "cluttered" this week with the results. I just wonder if what we are all seeing is in response to the realization that bing has caught up to google in organic quality. They obviously still dominate the traffic and are making money hand over fist before these changes this month.

All at once they're altering layouts in a huge way. What happened to the theory it isn't broken don't fix it? Simplicity was king.

[Spencer]

I've been a member of the Bing Webmaster Forum since the beginning and, even though Bing sends far less traffic than Google, I feel that the project is far more rewarding and worthwhile than anything that surrounds Google. Bing actually gives direct access to Bing engineers through this forum, which is a million times better than consistantly getting some cryptic dismissive comments from Matt Cutts.

Google is suffering from over tampering and a distinct anti-seo campaign, Bing seems to say we welcome your seo efforts but will be quite secretive over our decision whether or not to include them in their results. In other words they show confidence in their results, whereas Google has a tendency to take 2 steps forward and 1 (sometimes 3) steps backwards.

[scottsonline]

It's the simple things. I've read when it comes to branding bing considers whether or not the 'brand' lists contact information/phone numbers etc when weighing whether or not to rank it at the top. Stands to reason if there's no means of contacting the brand they probably don't want end users bugging them. Simple enough but totally lost on g.

I think caffeine backfired. The faster they can index the faster someone can manipulate the SERPS. Today has been an eye popping experience for me. When I see our main competitors...companies I knew were in the margins between black and white hat ranking at the top of every key term I'm not surprised. How the top 3-5 got there in probably 30 cases did shock me. Tons of php links, hacked sites, absolute junk that is and has for months driven tremendous traffic to these sites via google SERPS. Bing doesn't see most of these links and is unaffected by the manipulation that can drive a site from 15th to 1st with 5k new links in a few days.

The disconnect these last two days with the display in google....it wasn't broken don't fix it. Bing is now the clean alternative. Related searches are logically placed, the page is not cluttered. These pages today from google are so overloaded everything competes for attention and there is no focus.

[HuskyPup]

Simplicity was king.

And therein lies the problem. Google's got its fingers in so many pies now and is trying to introduce them all into their own SERPs but seemingly, not overtly!

Money greed is the driver behind all of this, nothing else.

I have to admit that I am using Bing 50% of the time now and will probably increase it further as I satisfy myself that they really have got their seemingly lesser amount of spam under control.

It's a bit like going back to the late 90s when Google was under the testing phases but a whole lot more accurate and surprisingly I do hear quite a few people these days saying "Just Bing it".

[tedster]

Most users never see 98% of the changes Google tests - something like 200 are going at any time, from minor layout tweaks to very big deals. The way I see it, Google might test some change in reaction to Bing, but if it goes live to all users that's only because the test data showed a positive result.

We may not like some of what we see, but that doesn't mean the change was just thrown out there willy-nilly. Google is without a doubt a data driven company.

[FranticFish]

Can anyone give credence to the 'rumour' I read (might have been here, can't remember) that BING stands for Because It's Not Google?