Search Resurgence by Bing

Matt Crowley - September 11, 2012

In a divisive battle between Google and Bing, the two search giants have both made incredible strides in search quality over the past few years. Although Google has held a vast majority of the market share for quite some time, Bing is determined to change search engine user perspectives and garner a bigger piece of the pie. This competition is becoming exceedingly beneficial to business owners with a strong web presence. As the search landscape grows, it is of the utmost importance not to commit your attention to Google alone.

Bing has become so incredibly confident in the quality of their search engine that they have even launched an online challenge with Google. This challenge titled Bing It On was introduced by Bing on September 6th and gives users the ability to perform a search while obtaining results by both Google and Bing in a side by side comparison. Many people might remember a similar test called the Pepsi challenge. Most elements which could identify the search engines has been stripped and allows for a truly blind comparison. After each search the user is asked to choose which results page was more helpful. After 5 searches the users is informed of which search engine they preferred or if there was a draw.

Although this challenge will certainly not give Bing a major boost in search engine market share overnight, it may greatly help their reputation. There is no doubt that Bing is more of a major player than ever. Microsoft’s director of Bing Stefan Weitz was even quoted as saying “if you strip the brands off and show people the results side by side we knew we’d win.”
The table below shows the most recent search share results from comScore. Although Bing is clearly lagging behind Google, they are making strides to catch up.

This will be a long and arduous fight for search engine dominance, but users and business owners can benefit greatly in the meantime. The increase in search quality by both engines will highlight companies that adhere to strict SEO best practices standards and grow their web foot print. If you publish unique and quality content, maintain a search engine friendly site, and abide by SEO best practices then a Bing resurgence can be a great traffic driver for your website.