Internet audience measurement company comScore has released a preliminary study of the performance of Microsoft’s new search engine, Bing, during the first week of its public launch.
The study confirms earlier reports that Bing had a very good start, even overtaking Yahoo as the No. 2 search engine at some point according to web analytics firm StatCounter (although that apparently lasted only a day).
According to comScore, Microsoft Sites increased its average daily penetration among searchers in the United Stated from 13.8% during the period of May 26-30 to 15.5% during the period of June 2-6, 2009, an indication that the search engine is reaching more people than before. Microsoft’s share of search engine results pages (SERPs) in the U.S., increased from 9.1% to 11.1% during the same time frame.
Like many people, I’m trying out Bing for a month or so to see how well it stacks up against other search engines (primarily compared to Google, which has been my default search engine for many years). So far, I find the experience generally very pleasing and the search results to live up to the hype. It remains to be seen if I, and the many others out there who are taking Bing for a test-drive following the launch buzz, keep on using it when the momentum fades away.
But boy is it good to have some real competition in search going, even if just for a short while.
To be continued.