Google or Bing?
For years, Microsoft has been trying to come up with a viable alternative to Google’s famous search engine. The company’s latest attempt is a much-hyped "decision engine" called Bing. The question I had when I first saw the commercial for Bing was, is Bing a worthy alternative to Google?
I decided to test Bing against Google by running a few searches on both and comparing the two. Since I’ve been searching for an effective weight loss supplement to complement my diet and exercise regime, I decided to key in the keyword phrase "quick trim extreme burn reviews". In Google, you get your top search results, a few sponsored ad links in the sidebar and related keyword search links at the bottom of the page. With Bing, the first thing I notice is that more space is devoted to sponsored ad links than Google. On the plus side, when you mouse over the search results, you get a summary of the contents. It’s a nice idea in theory, because you can get a brief preview to help you decide whether or not to click on a link rather then just blindly visiting pages. In my first search I was actually impressed with Bing.
I decided to try another search and typed in my own name. In Google, the results were much more relevant than Bing and Google does a fair job of eliminating redundant results. Also, when viewing Bing’s summary, I noticed two flaws: The first is that when previewing content from places online where my writing had appeared, the summary displayed content that Microsoft doesn’t have permission to display (I’m not suggesting that I’m planning legal action or that I care that much given the circumstances, just making an observation). Second, in many, many cases the summary previews irrelevant page content from ads and other text that has nothing to do with the search parameters. In this search, Bing definitely shows some chinks in its shiny armor. Google is still Google. So, in my second search, I have to be honest and say it’s Google, hands down.
The biggest deviation in the quality of the two search engines came with my third test search. Since I’ve been so concerned of late with eBooks and eBook pricing, I typed in "eBook pricing" into Google and Bing. I was looking for links to information about the eBook pricing controversy — not links to places that sold eBooks. Unfortunately, the top results in Bing were mostly commercial sites selling eBooks and eBook readers. Google, however, seemed to magically know what I was looking for. The top results in Google took me to information about the eBook debate over pricing. Bing actually became more useless the more I used it.
Overall assessment: Google still does what it’s supposed to do. Bing looks nice but ultimately isn’t as useful as Google. Although, Bing seems like a marginal improvement over Microsoft’s previous search engine effort.
