Bing : Different lipstick, same pig.
June 2, 2009
Microsoft has put out it’s “new” version of a search engine in hopes of taking on Google. At the risk of sounding like a nay-sayer from the start and a contrarian, can I be blunt?
They do not stand a chance of eating into Google’s market share lead. Seriously. Is E-bay getting serious erosion from others in their class? Nope…they are THE garage sale of the internet.
Craig’s list, the same. They are THE classified ads for the internet.
And Google is THE search engine. Google is now a verb. Note to Steve Ballmer. Get over it.
More importantly, BING is more lipstick on M-soft’s pig of a search engine. Maybe a different shade, but it does not change the overall spammability of the engine itself.
Yes, they now have added LOCAL search and have 10 packs (or 7 packs or whatever) ala Google. The difference? Go to BING and type in your city followed by Homes…
You will often see the local search that contains Funeral Homes, Home Depot, a real estate website (maybe), and even sometimes group homes for wayward youth.
Nice.
Search engines are entirely about relevance. Bing has clearly in my mind not made enough of an improvement to change ANYONE”S behaviour to use them instead of others. And that is the acid test.
Will their modest imrovements from the old MSN, Live, etc make enough difference to sway user behavior? Not in my opinion. To do that you would really need to change who you are or more importantly how the game is played.
That goes well beyond changing the shade of lipstick.
I’m glad you wrote something because I was going to be as kind! Well said, Eric. And we give G a hard time, right! I don’t remember the last I checked any SE Microsoft related (grin) except for analytics I suppose. Do you even need a back link to rank for a relatively competitive term so long as you have your meta-titles and descriptions packed to the gills with desired KWs (grin). Back to the 90’s
@Home Depot – yep got that one too!
This is yet another lesson on authenticity, Eric. Knowing who you are and what you want. Maybe a weird analogy, but this reminds me when the Blackberry Storm came out…RIM so badly wanted an IPhone killer…but the storm was so far from it’s polished, robust “competitor”. Now had RIM stuck to the querty with also a touch screen, then maybe you have something “new”….
Back to SEs
, at least Wolfram is attempting to change a paradigm as “Computational Knowledge Engine”. But Bing….it has no boom…there will inevitably be a few weeks of curiosity, but IMO, there will be no shift in the SE market share…
At this point, and in my humble opinion, the only threat to some of G’s “search space” is Twitter…but that’s a whole different post isn’t it (grin)…
Thanks Eric…
The title has me visiting Eric. Nice.
The only thing I like about Bing is my rankings for one of our terms. We have 3 of the 4 tops spots, which we shouldn’t. Goes to show how irrelevant Bing is so far. And, we have no positions in their local search, and we should have at least one spot. : (
I think Microsoft has forgotten the work and quality that went into knocking IBM out of the top spot for PCs.
Hey Eric, I am not impressed with Bing either. Honestly, I think this is a smoke screen, and that MS is not going after Google here. They are slickly trying to associate themselves in the same universe with Google in an effort to wrestle the #2 spot away from a reeling Yahoo. A shift from #3 in search to even a distant #2 will easily recoup the $100 million MS is about to dump on advertising. Plus they are getting tremendous PR out of their campaign already, compounding the effectiveness of their impending ad buy. Overall, a very slick move by MS. Yahoo is weak and Ballmer is stepping on their throat, possibly out of spite as well. When is the last time Yahoo innovated anyhow?
Great assessment, Eric. With Bing, it feels like its the 1990s again as far as “relevant” sites being displayed. Even with the built in distribution network that they may have, if the search engine doesn’t display relevant and NON-spammable results – customers will go somewhere else.
It will be interesting to see how quickly people figure out just how spammable Bing truly is – and if they will make any corrections to fix it, before they lose all relevancy and sizzle for promotion of Bing’s release.
@Malok- With visibility and with their upcoming ad campaign, it will become apparent the weaknesses in their algo. Will sunlight be the best disinfectant? or will it just shine the light of truth over the pig sty…;-)
@Kevin- You are correct about Wolfram…in my opinion you need to alter the game rather than go the same thing. The advantage that M-soft has is their distibution. That said people shift their new PC’s from Bing to Google every day.
At least Wolfram is offering a truly innovative approach.
Eric
Reading you loud and clear, Eric! I’m glad I found this site because I’m going to franchise my funeral home business. You want to get in on the ground floor with me?
Turns out I do well on Bing just the same as Live and MSN. If only it were a relevant search engine.
Come on Eric, you say search engines are entirely about relevance… My site ranks well on Bing so they aren’t totally off the mark and in fact IMO for my area, Bing is doing a better job than G since I am ranking higher than those old crappy AA sites.
Of course I agree with you that Bing doesn’t have a chance in competing with G, but at the same time, maybe G will realize that some of those old antiquated AA sites, really are not more relevant than a more modern, informative, totally awesome website.
Hey Dennis! Too funny.
I think one comment above that is worth a re-read is Mark Green’s. I really think you may be right about Ballmer trying to stick a fork in Yahoo…and they may well be able to pull that one off.
A couple of us here in Louisville were talking about that tonight and it really does not matter who the winner is…the loser is Mr. Yang.
Best
Eric
Eric, I have not yet see this blunt side of you! I like it! Yay! Did you get more Google juice for this article? J/K, it’s a pleasure having you work with myself on SEO.
Eric, this post to great, Microsoft may even consider having you the director of technology which would be a smart intelligent move on their part. Who better to have on their team than the messiah of SEO. You are great Eric.
I agree with your points, but I believe it is familiarity. I use firefox and my default search tool is Google, as a person with some decent computer skills I can choose whomever I like, but I choose google like I choose my favorite t-shirt for bedtime. Google, is a giant and we do need someone to take some market share. I believe in competition and I hope yahoo and microsoft can do something to narrow the gap. Here is the funny thing. My home page is yahoo, but I never use their search tool, so the yahoo/bing team will have to do something amazing!
Hi Matt
Are you any relation to Richard? Good to meet you. I think competition is good as well. To date MS has not done near enough to take Google on…this post was written in June and I think the new battleground is now the “cloud”. Very good points though
best
Eric