A couple of days ago we reported statistics from StatCounter suggesting the Bing, Microsoft’s new “decision” engine, had bypassed Yahoo as the number 2 search engine in the U.S. and the world. Well guess what? That same data suggests Bing reign as #2 was extremely short-lived: As in one day. Yes, the same data now suggests that just as quickly as Bing shot up, it’s now heading the opposite way. And in fact, it’s still falling.
On June 4, Bing had over 15% of the U.S. search share market, according to the data. On the same day, Yahoo had just over 10%. The following day, Yahoo had almost 11% while Bing had fallen below 10%. And yesterday, Bing had fallen to 6.68% while Yahoo rose again to 11.33%. Meanwhile, the same data suggests that while Google took a big dip during Bing’s reign, it too has now started moving back upwards as Bing declines. Not that Google was in any real danger — on June 4 (the day of Bing’s #2 position), Google had fallen to 72% of searches in the U.S. Now it’s just about back up to 80%.
Worldwide data shows the story to be basically the exact same. Bing was #2 for a day then Yahoo regained its place as Bing fell.
Of course, it’s important to note that StatCounter is not the be-all end-all measurement tool for such numbers. It claims to track the browsing behavior of over 2 million users across 3 million sites. But the overall trend is undeniable — Bing shot to fame quickly, and once the initial hype wore off, it’s now falling back down. Microsoft needs to keep pushing those TV and web ads to keep its name in people’s minds. Otherwise, Bing runs the risk of having already peaked.
Update: As Matt Cutts (who yes, works for Google) points out in the comments, StatCounter updates every few hours, so there is also data for today already. And it’s more bad news for Bing. It’s now down to 5.65% in the U.S. — yes, that’s less than what Live.com was at last month.
[thanks Anurag]
MSFT may change the story of search with this campaign, but it’s unlikely they’ll change the habits of so many. The new story says Bing is a viable option. Lasting change in users’ behavior will only follow significant and fundamental improvements, not just incremental.
since when was statcounter a reliable source
this us honestly the first time ive ever seen publishing using statcounter as a source
where is comscore or nielsen? wtf is statcounter?
You should actually trust StatCOunter data much more then ComScore or Nielsen.
StatCounter is a free web traffic analytics tool such as Google Analytics. It’s one of the mos tpopular Google Analytics alternatives and in some segments it’s even much better then analytics.
So? It doesn’t mean it’s 100% accurate. Still unreliable.
MGS post about negatives of bing count is now 3. It is rather positive that it beat yahoo search at least for a moment!
I already said in the previous article that there is nothing to get excited that Bing got #2 position. It’s just because of media hype that it has got in these few days.
And I also bet on this thing and Yes! I won.
http://www.smartbloggerz.com
I like Google’s clean white search-page. Bing’s homepage has a very nice picture, but all I really want and expect is a search toolbar. I don’t want to be distracted by a pretty picture and try to find where to type by search words.
*dangles keys in front of Joe* Right. It works on babies, why not us. Bravo Joe.
I think its too early to start comparing the percentage of market share. But few things are worth noticing.
1. Bing unlike many other search engines launched in last 3-4 years, including MSFT’s Live has been getting a great positive shout outs by many.
2. This is for the first time I am seeing Matt Cutts, going after any search engine. You can feel his discomfort. I don’t know about you, but I found Matt Cutts reactions in his twitter and various blogs a bit kiddish. This again says one out of two things.
2.a. He has always been kiddish.
2.b. Or something is making his behave like this. Bing!
3. Bing is relatively new, and Microsoft will surely realize it might be their last bet in internet. So I am sure they are going to put their 100% on this.
hehe
For some reason while reading this story I can’t help but picture Steve Ballmer with his head down thinking why in the world did we name this thing- Bing -aka (but It’s Not Google)… LoL
I mean if this is Microsoft’s best shot at trying to dethrone Google, -Wow.. (Let’s just say it’s a good thing I don’t own any of Microsoft’s stock)
Ballmer better not change Bing’s name to Bungled
So now the title should read “did Yahoo just do a leapfrog over Bing?”
Ha ha, definitely debated that one.
I don’t think yahoo did a leapfrog, more like the floor gave out under bing.
I can only imagine that amount of people that went to Bing, tested it out, said “cool” and then never plan on going back (same thing for wolfram.alpha)
wait til they fix the IE6 problem….. even less market share is to come
That suppose IE problem is nothing but bullshit… perhaps if techcrunch had more credibility they would do their go investigative report on the IE6 issue.
StatCounter updates every four hours or so, so you can get data from today (Sunday) as well: http://gs.statc...090508-20090607
So far today/Sunday Bing is at 5.65% of the U.S. market. For comparison, Windows Live was was 6.36% back on May 19th, according to StatCounter.
Oh thanks Matt — figured today’s data would be incomplete. Will update.
no shocker, I for one am just happy there’s a product out there thats as good/a little better than Google.
If anything, it keeps things moving along.
GOOGLE IS SOOOO FTW’d.
Pretty awesome dropdown results on bing for “linux”…
It need much more time until the numbers become significant and allow any conclusion or prediction of future market share.
I agree, but still very interesting nonetheless.
I don’t think you wrote this article because it is interesting at all. Instead of showing even a small sign of objectivity, you opt for kissing google’s ass on all of your posts… pathetic
Yeah all of them, clearly:
http://www.tech...-still-failing/
http://www.tech...te-still-sucks/
http://www.tech...cial-profiling/
etc…
As much as I love pointing these out every time, it’d be helpful if you did at least some research before you start talking out of your ass.
lol pwnt
Hey MG (hope that’s not Mostly Google like others are claiming),
How about you cover this: http://blindsearch.fejus.com/
Yahoo’s search engine is WINNING in blind tests! How about you tell people the truth about Google’s search results (that their popularity is due to branding, not quality). Google’s quality has been slipping for years and their search results are pretty crappy.
SO much hate your way today.
I saw the comments earlier of some dude calling you out for being an apple fanboy, followed by your destruction of his life.
Keep up the good work man!
nah, he’s just got a boner for all things apple, not really google
MG you find it interesting because you are a fanboy… i read through your article and pretty much the impression i got was that of a little kid after he finds out that he is yet to loose the battle. Quit your fanboism!
c’mon MG no reason to hide behind the closet. We all know you are a big fanboy that would do anything to help out your favorite team look good(Google, Twitter).
Dude (MG), you’re so far up Google’s arse (and Apple too) it’s ridiculous! Can’t believe all the fanfare that greeted your arrival at Techcrunch.
a search engine called Bing – who woulda thunked – LOL
If Microsoft ever wants Bing to take any market share away from Google, it needs to innovate, and bring the users something that other search engines can’t. iGoogle, and other portals, like my.Yahoo, are great, but they lack the API into other sites. MSFT needs to create an open API; something like Facebook connect, where users can post to their Facebook account, their twitter account, their flickr account, etc without having to browse each of the individual websites. I’m not saying they should do social networking, I’m just saying they NEED to make the internet easier so that it caters towards the end user.
Even then, they’re facing a uphill battle, considering Google has such a large market share and are completely ahead of the game in product offerings. MSFT could be better off just going after a niche market, and dominating that search engine space.
The jury is still out on this one, I think Bing can position as number 2 – I did a Google Vs Bing comparison http://uurl.in/slfy2 and while doing it looked at Yahoo too. I think as tech, Bing may be better than Yahoo
No one cares about StatCounter. Let’s reserve judgement until the comscore numbers for June come out in July.
Or Alexa. lol
hahhahah @$Microsoft
bing attracted more attention in China, however only a few of them to test. It still need the promotion work.
http://blindsearch.fejus.com
Great comparison website. Yahoo is leading at the moment and I have to admit I am surprised at how much I am choosing Yahoo and how little I am choosing Google. Very strange.
Not strange at all. Google’s search is crap these days. They have too much spam & SEO-induced garbage in SERPs.
Yahoo’s been doing a lot better than people give them credit for.
Yahoo’s been my default search engine in Firefox for at least 6 months or so. It’s great.
Steven Marlin, the breakdown was running something like 45% Google, 33% Bing, 22% Yahoo. Then someone started astroturfing the poll, until Yahoo was “leading” the poll at 50%.
Or as the author of the poll put it: “Some douche is gaming the system, I’ve removed the ability to see the results until I sort this out.”
Exactly, I did have on my list of things to cover, but saw it getting gamed so not much point to it.
Wow, for most of my queries it was very hard to distinguish which one I would have picked. They all returned results which were very similar. This was an eye opener in terms of how good yahoo and bing are. I had thought I would easily pick search engines with best results and it would almost always turn out to be Google. Good site.
You guys are in big trouble. I used to think Google was way better. But when I used blind search I was stunned how often google was wrong.
I totally feel scammed. You guys are just a brand name.
John you must also remember that the Google edge is simply based on feedback from all their data.
If Yahoo and Microsoft combine search efforts this edge will erode and the lame results of Google will become more obvious.
According to those numbers 55 percent chance a yahoo bing search will hit over a Google. And recall bing was ahead until Google started to game the system. To bad for Google that Yahoo was better at gaming then google. But then again Google is not known for being good at much. ie. Google Apps.
Wow. That link is amazing. I had suspected Google’s relevancy was getting loose lately, but I had no idea. I picked Google only once in 10 tries. Others went to Yahoo mostly then Bing.
I actually prefer bing over google. There’s just something about it. However, most of my searching is done in the firefox search bar which is set to google. I had to do some searching to find the official microsoft bing add in so now bing will get the majority of my searches.
my firefox was set to google too, but I set it to Bing now. Absoultely love bing. Way to go MSFT
mg…
do some god dam research sometime.. other online sources have indicated that the initial stuff you posted wasn’t necessarily corroberated by other measuring systems…
once again.. the equivalent of junk science by you guys…
which dam am I doing research on?
‘God’ dam.
The Hoooooover Dam
Even Cuil had a short-lived spike. Everybody has a little bit of hype momentum.
http://www.tech...ts-rock-bottom/
Yeah, but it was immediately clear that cuil had no chance after its servers crashed and the results it returned turn out to be crappy. Bing, on the other hand is backed up by 100mil advertisement and the results are not as bad as cuil. So, the hype would live little longer and may or may not turn into real marketshare gain.
Remember, guys, “market share” involves real normal people –the kind of folks that are often despised by the (wannabe) nerd elitists who often post snarky remarks on TC (You know who you are.) Ordiary people, millions and millions of them, want to do things like shop, get good health info as their first hit etc. Bing! offers a huge gain in usability for them. And their loyalty to Google? Not worth the dime they don’t have to pay for a consumer SE. So, if Bing!’s looksc ooler and makes it easier for them to do what they want to do, some people will switch, others will use the Big G for some searches but shop on Bing!. It’s a win for MS in any case. They don’t expect to become the market leader in this space, remember, just be a contendah.
I do use bing for one thing though to see if there is any cashback on the stores I am buying online from but after that its back to business with google for everything else. Cashbacks dont build loyalty, good search results do.
Anyways, I commented in FF on friday that its too early to call and bing is already dipping: http://bit.ly/LelnW
So it was to early to call and yet you are calling it to early? mmm….
good point
Google is so 90ties..
http://www.bing...m/search?q=ebay
Why is there only one result?
Bing sucks. Does that explain why they aren’t climbing?
Because that’s the result 99.99% of people want when they search for “ebay” without any additional terms.
There’s a link below the correct “Ebay” result for
“search for other results containing ebay”.
Wow it’s funny how they get embarrassed right away… they don’t even bother to look at the full results… good that you pointed that out Shu
@chris
what else would you want? bing is saying…you want ebay…why not just go there…boom. link to ebay. idiot. hey there are some gasoline and matches over there…have fun.
DecisionSearchEngine.com
As I mention previously the bing site is going to be like the curl site. It will be quickly forgot by users. most of the users are very used to google
Comment Posted By Owner of Stock Traders Blog
because people are used to google don’t mean that they won’t get used to bing…
Oh well, there’s always the next re-branding. That can’t be more than, what, a couple of months away, right?
Habits good or bad are hard to die. No matter how great a search engine is. The time it takes to gain real traction Google will have time to adjust.
The real marketing of a search engine really has nothing to do with pure search results. But with the negatives associated with using Google search engine.
The problem is Google regardless of the truth MS shows the public will always remain a golden child to the public as MS still has a bad tastes as a evil monopoly and or too old to catch on in the minds of the new net citizens.
Thus MS has to use the human mind weakness to win search among other things.
Of course the big problem facing MS is that they think they have hired the smartest people based on test scores and alumni organizations.
MS will have to come better than what they rolled out. And as such that is why the old chick at yahoo could speak such trash to MS in their face.
“Of course the big problem facing MS is that they think they have hired the smartest people based on test scores and alumni organizations.” huh? What do you mean?
I am using gmail,blogger,igoogle and youtube quite a lot. Bing will not reach me with its lame interface and so called improved search…
If only WolFRam Alpha also had a search engine along with their knowledge engine and of course a better name that WolFram. Fcucking things sounds like a werewolf.
Wolfram??? LOL
“Stephen Wolfram is the creator of Mathematica, and a well-known scientist. He is widely regarded as the most important innovator in technical computing today, as well as one of the world’s most original research scientists.”
LOLOLOL
Bing.com had been referring a lot of traffic to our site last week. Although it is still going, it does appear to be slowing down.
As I said, Microbing using Live script with few extra changes, It seems like that “backlinks” is their main source of serps.
Only thing Bing can do is to compete Yahoo!, Dogpile and some other random Search Engines/Mix Engines.
Google is far, far away from being SE only, It is the mother & father of the internet, No one – Ever, Can compete that.
c’mon you guys of all people should know that any website has a cyclical weekly pattern and that the same traffic almost never occurs more than a few days in a row.
don’t be surprised if bing pops right back up sometime this week. i’m not a BING advocate…i’m just BEING a realist.
Agreed. What’s the saying… “One data point does not make a trend” … nor does two.
The original “Bing overtakes Yahoo” story was as dumb as it gets. It’s exactly like a “Magic beats Lakers” story 5 minutes into the first quarter.
And today’s isn’t much better. We’re maybe 7 minutes in now. There’s a whole lot of game left.
I agree with it, its too early to call either way.
Check out the results when you search for the word bing on bing.com
http://www.bing...=&form=QBRE
Bing is similar to Google, Yahoo (that’s nice) but Myspace !!! So has myspace decided on becoming a decision/search engine or is bing a social network. Very interesting.
Many people still don’t know about Bing, i’ve seen Ads for Bing in Windows Live Messenger, but still the service isn’t known or recognized by many… we need to see their position after the 80-100 million is spent… i think even if microsoft spent 100million/year for marketing their search engine… it would be fine with them, because they will day by day eat market share. Bing is actually a search engine to be used not like Live Search… so using it won’t hurt much, in fact it has its competitive edge in some areas.
Bing is good. They deserve the 2nd place. Lately Yahoo sucks. Good for Google and Bing.
So how is bing doing outside of the US ?
This is just a theory, but… it could have something to do with people’s internet habits being different on the weekend than during the weekdays. Perhaps, Bing will be back up tomorrow (Monday). I mean, it doesn’t make sense that Bing would have less market share than MSN and Live… since it replaced them. It should at least be as high as those.
It’s not just about searching the internet and returning results to the user. It’s about giving the user results that he is looking for…amongst other factors. Layout, design, usability, speed and relevancy are paramount to making a great search engine. Google innovates everyday, while microsoft tries to gain market share with publicity stunts such as Bing, which by the way does the most retarded job in searching possible. There’s no way in hell that microsoft can make any impact in the search market unless it makes a genuine effort to come out with a good search engine.
if you observe the graph first plot carefully, you’ll notice that anytime either yahoo/google/wolfram shows a spike, google takes a dip.
it only disproves arrington’s assumption that any new entrant will take share away from yahoo, not google.
if you extrapolate further, it shows that google’s traffic is (a) ready for alternatives (b) isn’t finding a good enough alternative
No one I know has been able to get past the first page of search results in the images search. And there are way too many images per page. In the preferences, it seems you can only limit the results on the web results. The images disappear temporarily when you scroll. And new ones load whenever they are added, causing the whole page to change. Very disconcerting.
Seriously, this is a non-story. First of all, did anybody really believe it shot up to 2nd place? Seems like some bloggers just jumped on some early stats and made a big deal about it and guess what, days later now bloggers are saying “oh wait a second, it really wasn’t 2nd place after all! ho ho ho! so there microsoft!” How about giving it some time to settle before reporting anything? Honestly, we’re getting “news” so quickly these days most of it is just noise, or else reporting on noise.
Why is there so much emotion (positive and negative) when a news story focuses on Microsoft? Let’s stick with the facts and how they might or might not impact us. In what ways is Bing better or worse than Google or Yahoo? How will (or should) Bing’s introduction affect marketers? Here are my newest thoughts on Bing, Yahoo!, and Google.
I saw an advertisement for bing on tv. And that bing marathon on Hulu is just stupid.
http://www.adag...ticle_id=137126
That was expected even though Bing’s good it can’t beat Google for now because it has to index trillions of pages and it would be best if we compared Bing with Google only after a few months or may be a year!!!
even bing will be far behind than yahoo
stats does not matter.
question is: did you found something on bing you didn’t find at google?
it happened to me first time yesterday.
So did ya?
I did. I found something, which I never found after probably 10-30 searches on Google, the first time I searched for it on Bing.
I must admit, although I’ve worshipped google since I first read about its algorithms in ‘99 in the New Yorker.
On the other hand, the third click through with this result led me to a PORN screen for ABSOLUTELY no reason. I’m a woman, no interest and it was completely irrelevant to my search. (No association, syntax, or any type of connection.)
Loving this: http://blindsearch.fejus.com
the spike and fall are typical of every product launch couple with a marketing push.
This is why MSFT will be spending 100m – they will keep interest for as long as they can through advertising until hopefully some of that sticks by itself.
Search results are comparable to google’s and the overall product is in my view better.
So, in the interest of innovation and for very practical reasons people should hope Bing is success.
Why so much hate?
envy.
Just set my homepage to Bing.
We MUST have competition to Google, which CONTROLS 80% of the market.
Wait, so where are all those people that were claiming the spike was due to Bing being forced on IE6 users?
*crickets*
Idiots.
It’s not impossible. MSFT makes its browsers default to Bing. For a few days users mistyping URLs or kicking off searches may now be redirected to Bing. Users hate the image heavy UI, and take the time to figure out the setting to switch back to their previous favorite search engine.
I was so optimistic about bing arggg leave stats out, it’s a good search engine…
The most interesting thing the chart shows is almost all of Bing’s ‘blip’ in market share comes directly from Google. This implies to me Yahoo!s users are both not tech savvy, nor up on popular culture/media.
Can you make the jump then to say if Bing does gather momentum, it will likely be taking share from Google more than Yahoo!?
Yes.
I think that assumption is reasonable.
I reserve judgment until comScore qSearch numbers come out.
Obviously, Bing overtaking Yahoo temporarily had a lot to do with the buzz and people anxious to check it out. People are over the introduction phase and have resumed their normal habits for the most part. But some people have been converted to Bing and some are on the fence it seems about making a decision. Still, there is lots of time for Microsoft to utilize its advertising and continue to make adjustments in order to chip in to the market share.
I hope the success of Bing’s launch proves that people are interested in alternatives. I find these new niche searches to be a pretty good idea if perfected. And meta-search engines like eZanga.com have an opportunity to really take things to the next level in the future. There are a few different directions the search industry can go.
So one of the Bing banner ads that is up right now has copy that asks, dramatically, “What can you solve with just one click?” and then prompts you to “Enter any equation.”
Just for the hell of it, I enter the simplest thing I can think of – “1+1.”
It then takes me to a page that delivers results for 1 & 1 Hosting, Bible passage 26:1, and 1-1 pipe. No answer to the math equation in sight.
http://www.bing...=&form=QBRE
“Calculation
1+1 = 2″