A simple comparison of Google Vs Bing

[mack]

As a simple example try searching for your town/city on Google and Bing. Without using specifics or search terms how do your results compare. For me the results on Bing are a lot better. On Google I still see the top 10 half full of spammy directories "find widgets in townname".

Bing on the other hand shown no such listings on the first page and shown only links to local pages. Golf clubs, sports organisatios, sailing clubs ect.

For me this is 1-0 to Bing, how does this compare for you?

Mack.

[Reno]

Both services did fine for my tests. I spend several months in 2 different towns each year -- one very small in the eastern USA (under 2,000), one moderate size in the northwest (over 200,000) and for each test the results were acceptable. However the fact that bing can do as well as Google is a good sign and gives me hope that they'll continue to accumulate additional marketshare.

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[tigger]

did an old favorite one of mine thats double glazing (town) and the top results on g were all directories where as same search on M pulled 9/10 bang on the money

the problem G has its always leaned towards the bigger / authority sites and this could also be its downfall after all as much as it may come a shock for G their are lots of little one man banded sites that are run by small companies trying to pull some business in

[mack]

It has me thinking that Bing is getting pretty smart. When a user types in a town name that probably aren't looking for a big company, they are looking for local sites. This is one area where the Bing algo is really good.

Mack.

[londrum]

another vote for bing. i live in a pretty non-descript little town, but with an original name. bing came up with all the main things in town, plus a load of pictures of the most famous building.

a third of google's results were to street map sites (even though they'd already printed their own map at the top) and another two of them were just complaint pages moaning about a local hotel.

[ByronM]

I quick search of "strasburg pa" and the results in bing are pretty nice. The related searches are very much on topic and the overall theme seems to cover everything - from wikipedia to travel to Thomas the tank being here to the railroad and to all the tourist traps.

Google shows related searches as other PA cities, doesn't break down the main link with the sub pages like bing does, however Google does show a map snippet, perhaps Bing should offer a map link somewhere on the serp as well