HitWise: Bing Busts Through 30% - Takes Share from Google

[Brett_Tabke]

[thenextweb.com...]

Bing-powered search in the United States just broke the 30% barrier, clocking in at 30.01% in March according to Hitwise. That was a rise from its February tally of 28.48%.

Google in the same time period dropped from 66.69% to 64.42%, ceding that ground to Bing.

Both Yahoo search, which Bing powers, and core Bing.com searches rose during the month. Market share for Bing.com rose from 13.49% to 14.32%, and Yahoo powered searches rose from 14.99% to 15.69% of the market.

[hitwise.com...]


[mashable.com...]

Google might still be the leading search engine in the U.S. by a large margin, but over the last six months, searches powered by Microsoft Bing are increasing at an impressive rate. So impressive, in fact, that if the trend line continues, there will be a real contest between Bing and Google next year — and Bing may just come out on top.

According to the latest data from Experian Hitwise, Google was responsible for 64.42% of searches in the U.S. in March, 2011. Bing-powered search — which includes both search.yahoo.com and bing.com — accounted for 30% of U.S. searches.

Previous Threads:
2 Years with Bing: [webmasterworld.com...]

[Philosopher]

Glad to hear this. Interestingly, just yesterday there was a truck in front of me pulling out of a parking lot with a small sticker in the back window that read "I Bing...You Bing?"

Brought a bit of a smile to my face.

[ddogg]

Google has been too busy solving problems that didn't exist. Who wanted Google Instant? Did you? I sure didn't. Some dumb engineers thought it was sooo cool so now we are all forced to endure it unless we manually turn it off. Same goes for the left side menu, who uses that? It takes up a huge part of the screen and is pretty much useless. I mean *I* use it, but only on SEO related searches, never for normal searches.

They did the ONE thing you would never expect Google to do, and that is to clutter up the UI. It's a turn off. I'm not saying Bing is better than Google, I don't think it is, but with all the UI changes it gives people an easy excuse to at least try a different search engine. I mean if you are going to have to re-learn how to use something anyway that's the best time to try a different product.

[MrFewkes]

Its funny - I used to write flicking instant and mouseover type dross when I was a noobie programmer.

I thought it was cool and clever. So did the users of my business applications.

After about a year - I started having to code in parameters so that the users could switch it off if they wanted - they basically needed to get on with their jobs and were in the greater part fed up with the flashy programming.

After about 2 years - I never EVER implemented any crud like that again.

Isnt it funny how these gods of programming dont have a clue about stuff that went out with the dinosours.

Hey - and whoever you are up there in these threads calling them GOOFLE - thats MY TERM :)

[setzer]

While the numbers are impressive, Bing is almost not even relevant for some niches .

I run a site with an Engadget-like audience, not in size but just audience type... we receive around 9K visits from Google a day, only 50 or so from Bing. I pretty much hold the same rankings in both too. That's a massive gap...

[seoArt]

I'm curious about the validity of the numbers as well. Maybe it's just my niche or website, but we're getting 12k visitors per day, and Bing is nowhere near 30% of SE traffic. 8% at best (including Yahoo).

Anybody with high traffic sites seeing Bing at 30% of search engine traffic?

What about you, Brett?

[celgins]

Microsoft, IMO, has done a fantastic job promoting Bing. They have several attention-grabbing commercials that help spread the word.

[bwnbwn]

Our company runs a number of sites in different nitches and can tell ya this one nitch might be 85% google 15 Bing yahoo, another might be 60% Google 40% bing yahoo, and another might be 50% Google 50% bing yahoo. It looks to me the older users are bing yahoo and the more hip nitches are google.
I built a new site about a year ago about a new goverment regulation for an industry. The ones that would be searching for this would be older middle aged men being the majority and maybe a small % of women in the upper level of managment. The site has always been 60% google 30% bing and 10% yahoo. I made a post about this a year ago. Just seems to be nitch specific.

Numbers from that site today.
39.60% www.google.com
30.07% www.bing.com
24.88% search.yahoo.com

[jmccormac]

@MrFewkes I think I've used the terms Goofle a few times to describe what Google is up to (mainly on the Adsense threads). However this one really requires some new expression. These people aren't the 'Gods of programming'. They look to me like a bunch of institutionalised academic lifers of the type who can't innovate or create so they become "employees". Naturally there's a hiring cycle where the existing non-innovators hire other non-innovators and the overall quality of the organisation declines.

Google's killer app was that it provided clean, usable and relevant SERPS. Its formerly clean and elegant interface has been banjaxed by idiots. Its SERPS have been polluted by spammers like E-How etc. It is on the knife edge of irrelevance.

Regards...jmcc

[fashezee]

Info Farts thrown into serps (maps, images, tweets, news, misc)

> I shake my head (left to right) every time I see this

Four results from the same site in position 1 to 4!?

> I only like it when this happens to my website

I had no doubt Microsoft would have finally got there. When they switched the engine from live.com to bing.com; I felt they finally got it; it would have been only a question of time.

[heisje]

Google holds currently 95% of the European market.
However, the US public has consistently shown the way to the future. If the Bing trend in the US does not reverse, their success will spill over internationally.

Europe was slow to adopt Google and Yahoo was God at the time, but the crazy Americans created a trend with Google that proved overwhelming.

Can history repeat itself in the case of Bing?
Let's wait & see.

.

[jmccormac]

@heisje What do you think the impact of this will be on the European search scene? Will it create the opportunity for a number of new country level search engines as Google has always been traditionally weak when it comes to ccTLD search?

Regards...jmcc

[koan]

However, the US public has consistently shown the way to the future. If the Bing trend in the US does not reverse, their success will spill over internationally.

Europeans just aren't very pro Microsoft, Google and the open source movement have a better reputation. Just look at the adoption of Firefox / Chrome compared to the US which is still very IE centric.

[heisje]

Dunno -- whatever will happen in Europe, it will take years, rather than months. Europe at this time and age seems to be pathetically slow at almost anything : methinks it is not called the "old world" for nothing. Google may feel safe there for the time being, but America will probably lead the way to the future, as it has most of the time done.

[Freedom]

Schadenfreude is how I describe my feeling for Bing moving up to 30 percent search share. I have come to despise Google. Outright hatred. Growing, fanatical hatred. And I love to watch it all start to slip away from them.

Their hubris and arrogance is out of this realm. They still think they're in their glory days < 2007. I started losing faith in them when they went from all words to any words for search results. I found myself having to use the Advanced search option more and more until I just gave up and moved on.

And in 8 years here on WebmasterWorld, I've never read a post from Brett that ripped Google apart like the one above.

Every corporation that starts out as the "darling" hits a peak and then drops off a cliff. Sometimes they come back, most times they don't. Google's out of control arrogance communicates they have never once given a thought to the fact that it could happen to them.

There hasn't been a positive thread on WebmasterWorld about Google in a very long time, yet they still operate like a prima donna movie star that says FY to her fans.

I'll remember 2011 as the real beginning of the end for Google. It might take years yet, but it's impossible for them to be what they were, and they'll never get it back. Larry Page just became the captain of a sinking ship.

My way of fighting back has been to slowly replace Adsense ads with Netseer, which is cooping with MSN/Yahoo. I feel sorry for the adsense reps that contact webmasters these days. The one that used to contact me was so full of herself and arrogant. I can't wait until she calls back. It's come to Jesus time for her.

[CainIV]

Google got greedy and by doing so not only reduced diversification of results, but spiced up results with more renderings of their own product suites, all designed to basically generate more revenue.

People are all about functionality and improvement, but can smell advertising a mile away, and when new useless features are added to the mix, the consumer is always going to look at potential competitors.

Google needs to get back to the way they used to be.

Caring about quality results and user. And still making a ton of coin.

[walkman]

Used to love Google, now hate them with a passion. Those arrogant b@%$t%/*s crushed so many online businesses so Amazon and eHow climb up and 6 weeks later no one has come back up despite many changes. Almost zero communication from them and 0% useful communication.
- You have scrappers outranking the original content and Google doesn't care
- They tried to steal book copyrights from authors only to be stopped by a court
- They blackmail Yelp and others over using their reviews without a link
- They are now banning or demoting everyone that has a business in the same field as Google (travel is next)
- In many searches the entire first page is Google's own crap
- They will ban you from Adsense and adwords for LIFE and not even tell you why or answer your call or email.

so, may the arrogant crash and let EU and US DOJ strangle them little by little.

Hey Matt Cutts, despite your 'positive feedback' looks like Panda didn't help you. In fact you lost a lot of market share in March.

[edited by: walkman at 12:29 am (utc) on Apr 13, 2011]

[jmccormac]

Wonder if this mess will impact on Google's share price?

Regards...jmcc

[SEOPTI]

Good news, I don't like Goog, their arrogance is disgusting.

[moTi]

the US public has consistently shown the way to the future

America will probably lead the way to the future, as it has most of the time done

such overly generalized statements really don't help any further in understanding the markets. one could as well state that the average american user is in fact quite conservative. the hard time firefox traditionally has vs. internet explorer in the american market weakens your argument pretty well. many people are still on aol-dialup there. unthinkable in europe.

but let's get back to the point. when i say that bing is not on people's radar in europe, it means that bing has yet to establish itself as a global brand. for that to achieve they have to put in at least the same effort internationally as they do in the u.s.

inward orientation was yahoo's flaw in recent years. foreign publishers, advertisers and users don't like to feel as such or be treated second-class. microsoft shouldn't make the same mistakes. personally i also dislike the google interface and results more and more each day. every competition is welcome.

[bsand715]

"wtf are you thinking of Google!? It looks broken - It feels broken - It acts broken."

I have been following WebmasterWorld since the days yahoo was king and Google was down the list.

Strong words that sums up Panda.

Brett is usually is spot on.

[Whitey]

Some good point's here. Here's my take on them :

-Keep it simple - the user prefers this - minimise the ads plastered all over the page - Bing wins
-Keep trust - Google has completely lost integrity with business' who feel threatened by their dependence and G's unpredictability - this is an aspect Bing needs to lock on to and PR the heck out of.

There will be a point when Bing can take advantage of the above, provided they stay committed.

[heisje]

such overly generalized statements really don't help any further in understanding the markets

I am merely stating facts, not providing interpretation. Regarding the 'net, whatever has been widely successful in America, has consequently found success in Europe. I do not venture an explanation of this, I merely state it as a fact. Meaning that if Bing does not reverse its current trend in America, it has a high probability (close to certainty) of following that trend in Europe.

[minnapple]

Make it sound "uncool" to use Google, and people will stop using it.

[BillyS]

- Google Instant (aka, the Waterfall) aka: new learning curve for users. aka: new users don't get it.

Are these statements based on actual resarch or is this just someone's gut? I know what webmasters think, but we're not the world (believe it or not...).

I asked about 20 "normal" users at work over a two week timeframe back in March. Average Joes and Janes. No one disliked it. Some didn't even notice the change.

So it's just as easy for me to say - Google Instant is a non factor based on my small set of end users...

It's okay to have an opinion, but when you make statements like "new users don't get it," then I'm interested in the research. I haven't seen any published.
p-30

[Leosghost]

Dunno -- whatever will happen in Europe, it will take years, rather than months. Europe at this time and age seems to be pathetically slow at almost anything : methinks it is not called the "old world" for nothing. Google may feel safe there for the time being,

As I've said many times ..until Bing and Y roll out something like adsense to Europe then European webmaster/publishers ..won't desert Google,how ever fickle and cranky and sometimes downright psychotic she may appear as mistress for no rewards at all.

adsense is like crack..and you don't even have to get out of bed to score , even less organise running your own ad sales and billing etc..I know some whose entire income is adsense based, house , mortgage, food , cars ..everything ..they are not going to give that up ..even if they currently don't have a good word to say "anonymously" or in private about Google.

People are lazy and are easily hooked ..and Bing and Y have never delivered on any of their promises of an adsense equivalent for European publishers ..or any publishers outside of the USA ..unless their monthly uniques are huge enough to have direct access to the ad feeds.

The politicians may bite Google in Europe ..but the publishers and the surfers will not desert them nearly so easily as some imagine..they need their fix ..of adsense income or youtube.

[graeme_p]

I like Google as a search engine, and I do not like Bing. It is not even what I turn to when Google fails.

On the other hand, I really, really, want Adsense to have more competition. There are other ad networks, but nothing that else provides global, simple to implement, contextual ads.

Are these statements based on actual resarch or is this just someone's gut? I know what webmasters think, but we're not the world (believe it or not...).

Actually, I think normal users like exactly the changes that sophisticated users dislike. A lot of the changes that we dislike is catering to stupid. That works: everyone users Facebook. Think in terms of people who will actually buy a book called "Farmville for Dummies" - from my point of view the title is a tautology.

[Rlilly]

I think one of G big problems is giving complete dominance to all the brand names at the expense of small business.

People search to find things or alternate sources. They already know Walmart, Staples, Amazon, BestBuy sells "blue widgets". So when the top 10 in the SERPs is saturated with these multi-national brand names, they go else where so search.

[pawas]

I operate many shopping websites for clothing, and my stats tell a completely different story from others on this forum. Below is combined percentage for all my websites for past 4 months.

March:
Bing+Yahoo: 68%
Google: 29%
Rest: 3%

February:
Bing+Yahoo: 64%
Google: 33%
Rest: 3%

January:
Bing+Yahoo: 56%
Google: 41%
Rest: 3%

December 2010:
Bing+Yahoo: 60%
Google: 38%
Rest: 2%

My websites rankings remained unchanged during these months. I wanted to post a snapshot of Analytics, but I am not sure if its allowed.

[ChanandlerBong]

google climbed to the top of the hill on the back of scraped stolen content they were happy to make billions off. They are increasingly moving in that direction, whether its others' content being used to keep users on google properties as long as possible or downright illegal content on sites like YouTube, their "do no evil" motto sits tightly in their back pocket, unseen.

I hope the whole house comes crashing down. What makes me sad though is that they're only a symptom of what the internet is becoming and their (unlikely) demise would only see them replaced by another who puts $$$ first and quality and integrity a distant second. I fear the days of the mom & pop website (or at least the visible, successful mom & pop website) are fast disappearing and perhaps that's the greater tragedy in all of this.

[magpete]

Just wonder what will happen in the UK if MS decide to spend a few quids to spam the free view channels with TV spots about Bing, like some well known "comparison" UK sites, ....imagine if they use John Cleese or Stephen Fry as guest stars......