Forum Moderators: mack
Bing, the search engine Microsoft Corp. is heavily promoting with a $100 million advertising campaign, helped the company notch a second straight week of gains in the online search market.According to data from comScore Inc., Microsoft's share of the U.S. Internet search market rose to 12.1% in the second week of June, up from a roughly 8% share in May, prior to Bing's release. Microsoft's share had risen to 11.1% in the first week of June, days after Bing's unveiling, according to comScore data.
"Microsoft Bing has continued to generate interest from the market for the second straight week," comScore senior vice president Mike Hurt said in a statement.
Bing Referrals May Be Steadier Than You Think [webmasterworld.com]
I've just noticed that the 'sign up now' for their advertising doesnt work using Chrome. mmm.
I must say I also tell everybody to use Bing so we will have a little competition so one Company is not ruling the World
Same here. I recommend to at least give Bing a try. I have switched to Bing for 80% of the searches. Google gets the occasional weird query that does not work well in Bing.
Interestingly, a much lower bounce rate than I get from G. visitors. Haven't managed to analyse the reason for that yet.
I'm still in the habit of using G personally, but I'm trying to make a conscious switch to it for the rest of the week.
I've just noticed that the 'sign up now' for their advertising doesnt work using Chrome. mmm.
Why am i'm not surprised....I was working on an article today when i noticed a sudden increase in HDD activity. And oooops, surprise surprise...a google quick search bar has suddenly appeared on my "quick launch" bar next to windows start button (W-T-F).
Something i have never installed before, or asked to be installed. All i have on this machine is the Google browser bar and google maps (since like ages ago). How come all of a sudden (and out of the blue) this thing suddenly pops out and installs itself without asking for my permission is beyond me....the hozpa!
I'm now in the process of removing anything google from this system...thanks but no thanks. It looks like the guys at the plex are really worried since bing is around...having to resort to such low life tactics speaks a thousand words.
Did this happen to anyone else by any chance today ?
BTW, good on ya Microsoft! I'm impressed with bing and mention it to everyone i know, with much pleasure.
[edited by: Web_speed at 2:20 pm (utc) on June 18, 2009]
Interesting tidbit: eWeek cites a Nielsen survey report that showed a 14.6 percent year-over-year loss of search traffic for Microsoft in May, before Bing's launch. For the same period, Google had 28.2 percent growth and Yahoo had 22.3 percent growth. So it's possible that Microsoft's massive ad campaign and PR blitz for Bing have simply helped to stop the bleeding and stabilize its injured patient. But again, it's too early to tell.
Personal side note: I'm still getting more referrals from Yahoo than from Bing (though my site ranks fine in both), and Google is way, way ahead of either in organic search referrals to my site. For what it's worth, my site reaches an international audience (only 40-45 percent of visitors are from the U.S.), so my referral numbers are likely to be influenced less by Microsoft's ad campaign than numbers for a U.S.-centric site would be. Does anyone here know how aggressively Microsoft (or isn't) is promoting Bing internationally?
Bing results for my industry couldn’t possibly get worse. It's like they were designed to be bad. There is nothing but keyword 1 + 2 url.com spam sites in the first 3 pages. There are certainly no quality sites in the top 3 pages. Really, there are none!
I would love for there to be some competition, but bing is worse than the first MS efforts years ago.
Unfortunately it’s just hype, PR and spin. There is no substance here whatsoever.
Call a spade a spade people. Please!
Everybody searches for different things and the stuff I'm searching on shows no more spam than Google does.
Why is it people think the stuff they search on is representative of the overall search experience for everybody when it's not.
9 out of 10 times webmasters complaining about bing results being bad are doing so simply because their sites do not show up.
And yes, some of mine do and some of mine don't.
Here is an example. I like a particular fitness girl named Jamie Eason.
Put the name of the fitness girl into the search of Bing and Google in tabs side be side and look at the results. Almost identical except Bing actually presents it in a way that is more appealing to the eyes.
The vast majority of people who use search engines are not webmasters.
"bing it"
at very least.
Hey, I see a mixed bag - a lot of good and some bad/poor results for a range of search terms - but then again I am seeing more and more spam and even dup sites in Google recently - in some cases even example.com and example.co.uk showing almost identical html design and content (they changed metric to imperial and copied 5000 pages with 90% dup copy, just tweaks in h1 and h2 tags!) - it's making some serps really pony.
This is M$'s best shot yet and if they can get a few Media and PR championing it.... then it has a good shot at least of taking some of the search share back it's been losing the last 2 or 3 years.
G needs a big competitor and M$ at least have a few billion in cash to keep promoting and pushing. More than can be said of Y!
God, how many times have I heard that line?
What a flippant way to try to discredit and side step a truth that doesn’t suit…
"Bing actually presents it in a way that is more appealing to the eyes."
Isnt that the truth!
When you get away from searches webmasters do, things are pretty much the same.
I think you've identified Bing's problem: If it's a parity product at best, users have no compelling reason to change their search behavior. (Why switch from Coke to a Coke imitator if you're happy with Coke?)
Because the Coke imitator is packaged in a more appealing way
Because the Coke imitator is packaged in a more appealing way
Is it? That's in the eye of the beholder, I guess, but the fact remains that a "me too" product is less likely to induce a switch in brand loyalty than a game-changer is. In search, Google = iPod and Bing = Zune.
I think you're missing a few things. The public perception of G has definitely been changing over the past couple of years. People have stayed with G because that has been the best choice.
Is it still? Maybe, but not by nearly as much. If Bing is close enough, the lowered perception of G may be enough for many people to begin switching.
In addition, since most new computers will come with Bing as the default provider, if they can at least parallel G's results, there won't be nearly the reason for people to change the default provider in the first place.
I still think it's not a patch on Google, changing people's habits without a clear advantage will be extremely difficult.
It's hype, just hype.
Will promoting Bing on new Windows computers help Microsoft? Maybe. But the "Windows advantage" hasn't done all that much for MSN over the past 14 years. For that matter, Microsoft's Internet Explorer has lost considerable market share to Firefox, despite the fact that IE is installed by default of Windows computers.
I have no bias for or against Bing, and I'm happy to accept traffic from Bing. I just don't think Bing is going to have the impact on the search business that some of you are hoping it will, because it it's no iPod or iPhone, and without a game-changing product, unseating an entrenched leader takes more than a slick home page and an ad campaign.
Still, time will tell. It'll be interesting to see what the market-share numbers say when the current Bing advertising/PR blitz has faded and the "trial user" phase has passed.
I didn't expect much but have been pleasantly surprised by bing.
Google was a big improvement and got very quick acceptance.
Bing does not have a difference like that but it has subtle things that will hook some users (those mouse over details...). It seems to have low latency on the wire which was (in my view) the outstanding benefit of Google. (I'm currently finding bing a little faster than Google but who knows if that will be sustained.)
Searches are mostly pretty good with the ocassional clanger. Given that Google has gotten progressively more spammy, time will tell if bing does or doesn't have an edge.
To me it seems that this is no Cuil and is likely to be a part of the ecosystem that you can't ignore.
I live in one of the most expensive advertising markets in the United States and I see a lot of advertisements for Bing. And I'd say I average about 45 minutes of television a day. My guess is MS is investing $500 million in advertising in 2009.
Web_speed "without asking for my permission is beyond me" well thats Google, they first do the crime before asking. even my Dad says "He dont trust Google like he did 5 years ago"
I agree. The arrogance and rude intrusive mentality this company is adopting recently is borderline disgusting. It will come back to hunt them sooner then they think.
