Bing
Maybe you've heard of it. If you're like me, you've seen all the commercials about Microsoft's new search engine. Oh wait, my bad, it's Microsoft's new DECISION engine. Big difference, right?
Well, for someone like me that uses Google multiple times a day, if there's something better out there, I want to know. So I thought I would put Bing to a little test. Better yet, how about a head to head competition with Google? Sound fun? Okay, maybe not fun, but maybe interesting enough for you to keep reading.
I've taken a few random items, plugged them into both search engines, and evaluated the results. Here we go!
1) 23rd president of the united states
Google returned the Wiki article first and a Wiki list of presidents second. Third was some website called "presidentsusa.net". Fourth was a link to the official site for the president.
Bing returned the "presidentusa.net" website first, then followed up with the Wiki article. It's third link was to a biography page about President Harrison on the website for Harrison Elementary School in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. (This site was 5th on Google.) Fourth site for Bing? Amazon.com.
I'm going to give this one to Google, but just by a margin.
Score: Google - 1 / Bing - 0
2) Aquada (a really cool amphibious car)
This one was pretty much a wash, so I'm giving them both a point.
Score: Google - 2 / Bing - 1
3) Serenity (a pretty good sci-fi movie)
Okay, this was weird. Almost the exact same results.
Score: Google - 3 / Bing - 2
4) Eisley calendar (a great band, who I happen to know personally)
Well, Google's first link was "Eisley fan's journal - calendar", I didn't see that link at all on Bing. I thought Google had won a clean win. However, when I clicked on the link I found that the website hadn't been updated since 2004. Oops.
Score: Google - 3 / Bing - 3
5) Aaroneous Findings (you've got to do the vanity search)
Google, without a doubt, won this one. The actual address of my blog didn't even appear on the results on Bing. Google? Top of the list.
Final score: Google - 4 / Bing - 3
Google wins!
That being said, Bing does have a couple of cool features. The travel feature that they tout on the commercials is actually pretty cool. Is that enough for me to change search engines? Nope.
Plus, saying that you are "googling" something when you are searching the net sounds so much better than "binging".
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Google vs. Bing
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3 comments:
This is a radical concept: Change when necessary.
Sounds simple. But as a culture we seem to be constantly "fixing" things. Change in and of itself is neither good nor bad. Fear of change is counterproductive, certainly. But it is also counterproductive to be constantly learning new ways to do the same thing if there is no benefit to the new way.
So, I don't fault Bing for being new. Perhaps they were trying for something that they didn't quite achieve. There's no shame in that.
But if they can't show me a solid reason to switch, I'll just stick with Google.
Call me old fashioned if you must.
Well, old-fashioned friend, I agree with you. I embrace change, but not just for change's sake.
Oooh - thanks for the scientific study! :) I keep hearing about Bing but haven't actually been there myself!
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