Microsoft may be on to a winner with Bing
Microsoft's Bing overtakes Yahoo in search stakes
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08 Jun 2009, Dave Neal , V3
Microsoft's Bing has already overtaken Yahoo Search to become the second most used search engine across the globe, according to new figures from US web analysis firm StatCounter.
Bing officially went live on 3 June, although some country versions were available ahead of that date. Much of the gain was at the expense of Google, which is still the clear leader, and StatCounter said that it is too early to say whether Microsoft can sustain its position.
"It remains to be seen if Bing falls away after the initial novelty and promotion, but at first sight it looks like Microsoft is on to a winner," said Aodhan Cullen, chief executive at StatCounter.
Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said recently that he wanted Microsoft to become the second biggest search engine within five years.
"Following the breakdown in talks to acquire Yahoo at a cost of $40bn [£25bn], it looks as if he may have achieved that with Bing much sooner and a lot cheaper than anticipated," said Cullen.
Bing holds roughly 16 per cent of the US search market, according to StatCounter's figures, while Yahoo has just over 10 per cent and Google 71 per cent. Worldwide, the numbers break down as six per cent, five per cent and 88 per cent respectively.
StatCounter also pointed out that Bing is not currently available in its fullest version in many locations, including the UK.
Visitors to the UK search page are given the sorts of options you might expect from a standard search engine, including tabs for news, images, shopping and the ability to see results from a chosen location.
However, selecting the US version of Bing brings up many of the additional options touted by Microsoft as key selling points of its new 'decision engine'. These include popular searches, a travel section, location-aware features such as 'restaurants in your area', and information relating to the pictures used to illustrate the Bing home page.
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Do you agree?
Overtaken or not, Bing is still important
The latest data possibly contradicts this claim. However, regardless of whether it has already overtaken Yahoo, Bing is and will continue to be important. See here for more: New thoughts on Bing, Yahoo, and Google
Posted by Marco, 08 Jun 2009
Reality
Monitoring search engine referrals (i.e. clicked on search results) to my website (mainly from the US) yahoo and bing are equal pegging, with google.com vastly more popular (cumulative for June, 60 times as popular) suggesting that for my site the bing and yahoo market shares are considerably less than suggested i.e. 2% each, with google on 90% plus. And yes my site appears in copious detail on each engine, but google appears to index a higher density of its pages. Worth investigating further, but Google shouldn't worry yet!!!!
Posted by paul freeman, 08 Jun 2009
Bing!... And the Image is Gone!
Bing has certainly caused it fair share of controversy. This week Microsoft was accused of copying a site from Kayak for the travel version of the Bing search engine. It also caused a few shocks amongst web filtering community who were faced with a new site with a comprehensive image and video search for which there was almost no way to block explicit content.
Bing has a pretty comprehensive SafeSearch function which prevents the vast majority of unsuitable images from being displayed. However, unlike Google and the rest, Bing uses cookies to set user preferences, not URL parameters. This means that ?forcing SafeSearch? as many web filtering vendors do, was not an easy thing to do. Developers went into overdrive to write new rules to deal with Bing cookies and the race was on to deliver support for the new search engine.
Microsoft then stunned everyone with a conscientious show of support for web filtering vendors worldwide. First they changed Bing by adding a URL parameter. Then they took the unprecedented step of serving all explicit content from a specific set of domains. This meant that all but the most simplistic filters could have a fighting chance of taking advantage of SafeSearch.
Our friends at Microsoft, however, were not resting on their laurels. Some vendors also provide an extra level of safety by performing extra filtering (deep URL inspection) on image search results. SafeSearch rarely catches all unsavoury images, but checking the URL that the image originated from enables vendors like SmoothWall to catch more ? an important feature in schools, where even the most well-meaning of students can easily stumble across inappropriate content.
Of course it is in Microsoft?s interests to support web filtering vendors ? since being "hard to filter" can lead to a blanket ban, something nobody wants. It is however fair to say that their recent pro-active approach has been very well received by Linux-based vendors such as SmoothWall, who describe it as ?a clear statement of support for web filtering vendors worldwide.?
Thanks Microsoft, keep up the good work. Oh, and Bing's not a bad old search engine either.
Posted by Tom Newton, Product Manager at SmoothWall, 29 Jun 2009