Google vs. Bing — a Quasi-Empirical Study

eko3 writes "SearchEngineLand.com is featuring an article that compares Google's result query relevance performance to Microsoft's Bing. Through the author's methodology and very small sampling, he argues Bing returns slightly more relevant results than Google. The article suggests that Google is riding its current market success based on its legacy namesake when internet search used to be a lot more painful than it is today."

Small sample is right

[KnownIssues]

A single person's subjective analysis of 20 search terms is a small sample indeed! I will say, Bing has come a long way in producing search results I feel are useful, but I still find myself frequently forgetting Bing is the default search, coming up with bizarrely useless results, switching to Google, and saying to myself, ah yes, these are the results I was expecting.

Perhaps I've just learned to produce search results in Google that meet my needs and haven't developed that skill in Bing. A more thorough, less subjective analysis comparing the two search engines would be very interesting. Sadly, I think this writer's personal conclusion is just going to spark a nerd-war over Google vs. Microsoft filled with subjective opinion (like mine) and little empircal evidence.

Insignificant Result

[phantomcircuit]

20 searches, 15% margin, 100% subjective.

You won't get me to use Bing any time soon ...

[spafbi]

One avenue companies utilize in trying to get you to use their products and services is through TV advertisements. While I have seldom been swayed to use products or services because of a TV ad, I often go out of my way to NOT use products or services from advertisers with either annoying ads or ads which go out of their way to insult the viewers' intelligence. Given Bing's current 'search overload' annoyvertisement (yeah, I'm coining a new word here), and regardless of Bing's competence in producing useful search results, I'll use the more-than-adequate Google search results which are easily customized using a few easy to remember search operators (http://www.google.com/help/cheatsheet.html [google.com]).

ORLY? Dig a little deeper on this one.....

[i_want_you_to_throw_]

You'll note that the story says "Sponsored by In-House SEO Exchange@SMX West". A quick visit to that site [searchmarketingexpo.com] shows that Bing is a Premier sponsor of SMX West.

Of course Bing! is better than Google. Shenanigans! Or at the very least, suspect.

Re:Small sample is right

[Totenglocke]

Yea.............I don't buy this guys results at all. I've used Bing and Google plenty of times - I stopped using Bing due to it rarely giving me what I wanted and mostly just giving links to MS products as search results.

Re:What about AltaVista?

[Toe, The]

Did you know Excite [excite.com] is still around? I had no idea.

This list is pretty amazing for some nostalgic perusal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_search_engines [wikipedia.org]

(Now as for that VAX... No! Bad!)

Re:Bing is great for non-techies

[Totenglocke]

I'm sorry, you must be using a different Bing than I do. Your statements regarding Bing's performance do NOT match up to my experience with it in the slightest.

Perhaps you're confusing bing.com with google.com/bing ? =)

Re:The market will decide

[Enderandrew]

Actually Google doesn't sell your data to advertisers. They use your data to determine which ad to show you.

Microsoft conversely filed for a patent specifically to govern a method of how best to auction your private data to third-parties.

Re:OK, I took a shot at it,

[BForrester]

Perhaps there's no existing webpage that answers this brutally obvious question. Here, Google and Bing. Crawl this:

How to change the water filter on a Frigidaire Professional Series:

  - Push the button labelled "eject" on the old water filter
  - Remove the old water filter
  - Insert the new water filter

Re:Bing is great for non-techies

[ChronoReverse]

Interestingly enough, Google puts the answer right on top if you do that. It even corrects you with Ecuador.

Re:O No

[KiloByte]

Following the "science fault" route:
* what does the article's author do for a living? Falsifying of search return.
* does the site that published this study have ties to the "winner"? It's among their "sponsors and partners" page.

Somehow, nearly every time you find an "independent" study giving sensational results, it is sponsored by someone with a vested interest in those results.

Re:Small sample is right

[afidel]

I just did a quick check to see if Bing had actually improved since I last used it, I type "vmware vma password saver" without the quotes into both bing and google since I had read a blog post today about a cool feature but couldn't remember the exact command, googles first result was the vma release notes that talk about the feature, bing had no relevant results in the entire first page. Doesn't look to me like googles in any danger of losing my eyeballs.

Re:O No

[Froboz23]

I used Google to search for "Conrad Saam Microsoft". The fourth result is this:

http://www.linkedin.com/in/conradsaam [linkedin.com]

On this page you will find that Microsoft is one of Conrad Saam's clients. Google, oddly enough, is not mentioned:

"My experience includes numerous awarding-winning interactive projects for clients including AOL, Disney, Ford, General Motors, Kraft Foods, Lego, Macromedia, Mattel, McDonalds, Microsoft, Napster, Nickelodeon, The United Nations and WeightWatchers."

I will take his anecdotal research with a very large grain of sodium chloride.