

33 Percent Of Google Users Will Use Bing More After ‘Bing It On’ Challenge - paulschlacter
http://searchengineland.com/bing-33-percent-of-google-users-will-use-bing-more-after-bing-it-on-challenge-135158

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paulhodge
Something that would probably be worthy of a blog post: the Google results in
the Bing It On challenge are unfairly neutered.

Try doing the Bing It On search for something like "radiohead". You see two
columns of plain old search results, both are fine. But if you go straight to
Google.com and search for "radiohead", you get more than just the normal
search results, you get a bunch of extra details on the right side of the
page. Those extra details are super relevant and helpful, like the band's
members, popular songs, upcoming events, etc. If you go to Bing.com and try
the same thing, it also has some extra stuff on the right, but it isn't nearly
as good.

This happens for lots of searches. Google often shows some really helpful
domain-specific information, but that extra stuff doesn't show up in the Bing
it On challenge.

~~~
PerryCox
This is also true for sports related searches. On Google when I search for the
Dallas Cowboys I get the scores of their 2 most recent games and with one
click I can have their full schedule without ever leaving Google. On Bing I
get their last games score and a few upcoming games, but if I want more info
then it takes me to foxsports.com.

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waqf
Apparently Bing's press release didn't state what proportion of people found
Bing to be better than Google, or even what proportion found it better-or-
equal.

If those statistics had been favorable, they would assuredly have been
reported.

(Note: Bing's blog post
[http://www.bing.com/community/site_blogs/b/search/archive/20...](http://www.bing.com/community/site_blogs/b/search/archive/2012/10/02/over-5-million-
have-visited-the-bing-it-on-challenge-35-of-google-primary-users-say-they-
would-use-bing-more-after-taking-the-challenge.aspx) does mention the 2-to-1
preference claim again, but that's from a previously commissioned study, not
from the Bing It On Challenge.)

~~~
bo1024
Yes, but it's still a great move by Microsoft.

Look at it this way: how many of the people who visit the page are going to
switch _away_ from Bing to Google?

Probably not too many. So even if they just get lucky one in fifty times with
a search on which bing does much better, that's a huge net positive for if
lots of people try it out.

------
FaceKicker
From the headline: 33 Percent Of Google Users Will Use Bing More After ‘Bing
It On’ Challenge

From the article: 33% said they would use Bing more often after taking the
Challenge

Two very different statements IMO - how many of those 33% are ever actually
going to think about it again rather than just reverting to their old habits?

~~~
Zenst
Very true, realy it is 33% of those who bothered to try it and bothered not to
verify the results and bothered to tell them. I had a go, had a big fat
picture splat up on my screen with some perverce advent calandar mentality
going on. I concluded Bing failed at that point, and as I didn't record my
input as many others then I was never counted.

That raises the point that optional feedback will gain 100% of those who
migrate at the time and a far lower percentage of those who will not. So that
33%, well you can half that and half again and still be short on the number
who tried it.

Now if that 33% was also backed up by access log saying we had 10,000 unique
vistors to this experiment and 33% of those said they were using bing now then
I'd be less sceptic.

You can also bet this 33% will get turned into 33.33 recuring % or 1/3rd and
from there the lie will be complete.

~~~
lmakeppleave
good luck on getting a hold of the unique visitors. I ran into this and
suspected the exact same "gaming"

------
luser001
If anybody from Microsoft is reading this:

I will switch to Bing if you enable SSL search.

I tried it for a few weeks w/o SSL and I liked it. Until then I will not use
it, nor recommend it to anybody else.

~~~
Sami_Lehtinen
Duckduckgo uses Bing results. - <https://duckduckgo.com/>

------
Yhippa
For kicks and giggles I switched to Bing on Safari on OS X and iOS to see if
I'm denying myself search results. I'd assess the results and sometimes I'd go
with what Bing returned but instinctively I'd end up going back to Google to
get more accurate results.

I think it's going to take more than "The Pepsi Challenge" to get people to
switch. To get people to switch Google would have to start giving worse
results than it gives now. Otherwise you're likely not changing. Even if Bing
gave better results I'm not sure people would switch due to inertia.

------
kamechan
I took the challenge and google beat bing 4 to 1 for me.

~~~
tux1968
Same result here. I wonder if Bing is better for the non-techie crowd.

~~~
Aloisius
I use Bing as my default search engine, but for anything tech related, if I
have trouble finding it on Bing, I switch to Google. There is clearly a
difference between the two.

Google seems to have simply more pages indexed and that helps with obscure
error messages or API usages, but seems to hinder it when searching for
anything relatively common.

~~~
boyter
That's my experience as well. Because of this I use DDG as my main search
engine now, mostly for privacy but also because I can switch to Google when it
or Bing's index is lacking.

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muzzamike
I think it's important to also consider that most of the user's trying the
'Bing It On' challenge are already at least considering switching services or
interested enough in bing to give it a shot. Even if 33% of these users went
on to use Bing more after, this doesn't represent your average google user.

I also doubt that 33% who say that are going to use it more actually will. If
it was that easy Bing would already be huge.

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logn
Bing does far less word-stemming in my experience which is probably because of
inferior technology but it's often a more desirable result.

For instance if you search a weird business name, Google tries to make it into
more statistically and phonetically common words. Bing gives you more of a
literal search. So they're going to wow a proportion of users who find that's
what they want.

Google is so annoying sometimes with word-stemming. You used to be able to use
the + sign to turn it off. Then you had to use quotes. Now the quotes don't
even seem to work. Sometime Google is too smart for its own good.

~~~
pchivers
Google's verbatim search option will give you the results you want:

[http://www.wired.com/business/2011/11/google-verbatim-
search...](http://www.wired.com/business/2011/11/google-verbatim-search-back/)

~~~
boyter
I wonder why they didn't consider going for a blended approach to the results
(assuming there isn't too many permutations for the search term) with a
disambiguation selector similar to the following,
<https://duckduckgo.com/?q=test>

Would save clicking around, and probably solve the use case for 90% of people.

------
lmakeppleave
Quite a few friends of mine took this test. 4 of the 6 of us who felt we
almost certainly choose google could not load the results page. Not exactly a
scientific study but I thought it was fishy. Anyone run into similar results?

~~~
cpeterso
I had the same result. The last page would never load for me. I know picked
mostly Google results (because I recognized some links). But I tried again and
purposely picked the Bing results and the last page still did not load. (I'm
using Firefox 18.)

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electic
When the title started off with 33%, I simply dismissed it as bad math = bad
article.

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thowar2
I found myself feeling better about search results because they were styled
like Google's results. I was assuming they were pulling a switcheroo on me,
but they werent.

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inkforest
I took the Bing challenge and I did feel that the Bing results were better,
but because they felt like Google's results from maybe 3 years ago. Anyone who
uses Google often can tell what Google search results look like, and those
identifying features were exactly what turned me off -- Gplus results, the
image galleries, other "features", etc.

~~~
madrona
WTF? A search page on Bing includes: * image search results * a 300 pixel wide
column on the RHS for linking your Facebook account to retrieve Facebook
results * News search * "Related searches" * "Trends to talk about"

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k3n
If only MS would invest more into improving their products and less on
advertising, then they might not even have to advertise. Google's search
wasn't really advertised, it was just the best -- so naturally, users flocked
to it.

I really think at this point that MS is just trying to outright buy market
share with these elaborate campaigns.

~~~
molmalo
I think this is not correct. Microsoft spends a lot in R&D. According to this
[1] (as of d 3/21/2012):

    
    
      The top 10 companies and the amount they spend on R&D
      (in billions) in the past 12 months were, according to
      S&P Capital IQ:
      • Microsoft (MSFT): $9.4
      • Pfizer (PFE): $8.4
      • Intel (INTC): $8.4
      • Merck (MRK): $8.3
      • Johnson & Johnson (JNJ): $7.5
      • International Business Machines (IBM): $6.3
      • Cisco Systems (CSCO): $5.6
      • Google (GOOG): $5.2
      • Eli Lilly (LLY): $5.0
      • Oracle (ORCL): $4.4
      Apple is 18th on the list, spending $2.6 billion, behind other
      technology giants such as Microsoft, Intel, IBM, Cisco, Oracle,
      Qualcomm, Hewlett-Packard and Amazon.com. Apple's R&D spending
      as a percentage of its revenue of $127.8 billion was 2%.
    

[1]
[http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/perfi/columnist/krantz/...](http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/perfi/columnist/krantz/story/2012-03-20/apple-
marketing--research-and-development-spending/53673126/1)

~~~
SoftwareMaven
It's interesting that you throw the Apple comment in out of context and blow
your argument as a result. Apple's amazing success with low R&D expenditure
shows how small the relationship between R&D and great products is.

It also says a lot about accounting, as how time is booked in an accounting
system for tax purposes will drastically alter those numbers, even if the same
work gets done.

~~~
molmalo
I included Apple's comment, which seemed to be out of context to you, because
it was not on the top-10 list, but it was the next paragraph in the linked
article, and seemed to be interesting so you could have a view of the mayor
tech players.

 _"Apple's amazing success with low R &D expenditure shows how small the
relationship between R&D and great products is."_

Also, it's not my intention to make a comparison between Apple and MS here,
but I think it's clear that MS spends a lot more because it has a broader set
of products and services. Furthermore, you need to define "great product".
Because what would seem to be great to consumers, may be totally useless to
enterprises. And that is reflected today in the market.

~~~
modernshoggoth
I actually re-read your comment a couple of times searching for an sort of
argument at all, let alone "blowing" it.

------
thejosh
In Australia, the domain is now redirecting to bing.com, has been since the
release - though it worked for a little while.

~~~
molmalo
Same here from Argentina. It worked when I fist tried it out a few days ago,
but it just redirects to bing.com now...

------
Axsuul
The amount of organic I get from Bing is pathetic. Their webmaster tools are
subpar. Bing still has a long way to go.

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faramarz
I would challenge you to try Million Short vs Google for really long tail
searches (example; gluten free cookie recipes). There's also a side-by-side
comparison page setup in the same fashion as the bingiton challenge.
millionshortiton.com

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taxonomyman
Please give the "Million Short It On" challenge a try at
<http://www.MillionShortItOn.com> challenge a try. You might be surprised by
Million Short for long tail searches.

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artursapek
That _Bing It On_ challenge fails to disguise Google's results to me. Tons of
Youtube links, and the styling on the image results part is always Google-y.

------
capo
Weirdly enough the fact that this is a marketing campaign by Microsoft seems
to be ignored when considering the numbers in the press release. There is also
the curious omission of the percentage of people who found Bing to be “better”
than Google.

Any reaction to Bing could have been a result of people being exposed to it
for the first time not necessarily it being the “better” option. It also could
be that people are having a positive impression simply because it’s not as bad
as they imagined it would be, as indicated by this claim: “64% of people were
surprised by the quality of Bing’s web search results.”.

Also there is the matter of the ridiculous disclaimer about the features being
omitted in the side-by-side as if they aren't integral to the search
experience, not to mention that seemingly all queries to Google appear to be
originating from Seattle which degrades the quality of local queries by user
located elsewhere.

On a related note I recommend reading the _How to lie with statistics_ book,
it's required reading especially when outlets copy/paste press releases:
[http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-
Huff/dp/039...](http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-
Huff/dp/0393310728)

------
gubatron
"Bing won 0 rounds"

