Another month, another report that Bing is chiming slightly louder. Analytics firm comScore has just released its latest figures on search market share, and once again Microsoft’s search engine has managed to grow while its competitors have seen modest losses.
Bing launched to the public on May 31, when Microsoft held 8.0% search marketshare. Over the course of June and July, the site has gained nearly a full percentage point — it’s up to 8.9%, and growth was actually higher for July than for June, when the site was getting all of its launch attention. Of course, Bing’s marketshare still pales in comparison to Google’s dominant 64.7%, but at least Microsoft is heading in the right direction.
Once again, it looks like Bing’s gain comes at Yahoo’s expense, at least to some extent. Since May, Yahoo has dropped from 20.1% to 19.3%. Google has dropped a more modest .3%, from 65% to 64.7%. We saw a similar pattern last month, when we pointed out that Yahoo was losing marketshare both from below (Bing) and above (Google).
Since then though, the landscape has changed dramatically: Yahoo search will soon be powered by Bing. When the Yahoo/Microsoft search deal was announced Yahoo EVP Hillary Schneider discounted the impact of this market share erosion, stating, “seeing Bing as a live experience was a nice assurance but did not change our rationale or timing.” But it’s hard to believe that Bing’s strong start didn’t have an impact on the deal.
Once that deal comes to fruition Bing will have to face the real test: can it continue to take market share away from Google, or will it simply continue to eat away at itself as users move from Yahoo’s portal to the Bing homepage?
Bing’s great. No search engine has ever switched me away from Google, but there’s something special about Bing. I’m not ready to say it’s my new search engine, but I’ve been using it exclusively for a few weeks and am very happy with it. The search results are just as good as Google’s, but what really makes it shine are all the nice UI touches. I never thought Microsoft would make a web service I would actually use (I hate them all – hotmail, msn, live, you name it I hate it) – but Bing rocks.
I love their pictures on the home page, nice touch, good idea.
If search engines give only homepages as results, that is example.com/index.html then it will replace so called portal directories or discovery sites.
+1
GO BING!
Bing is great!
It has better usability, and it is the best option for ads return! want a proof?
Google recent changing on its ’sacred’ (non)desing moving ads to the left was TOTALY a reaction to eyetrack studies confirming BING IS THE BEST!
Bing video is the best!
BUT, bing is not global! That is one thing Microsoft could do better and yet It does not!
MS always thinks on US market first! Why?
Because the US market brings them the most revenue, by a long margin.
Microfag.
I used to be a Google fanboy. But after that Blind Search Engine Test, I’m using both Bing and Google and frankly I’m finding better info at Bing more and more.
not yet great. They have yet to implement duplicate urls for same webpage, which feature google already has for years. http://www.bing...spx?PageIndex=3
Exactly, the search results of bing is good but i haven’t switched away from Google. Both are good and this competition would promote improved features in both.
Bing censors anti-Microsoft sites in their search results. Microsoft cannot be trusted.
No it doesn’t.
Yes it does.
http://advice.c...crosoft_results
The algorithm seems sharp to me. Asking why Windows is expensive is a dumb question, and Bing thought so too, and automatically switched it to the right question, why are Macs expensive, which I think is absolutely fair on it’s part. Similarly, asking why Google is evil is much more relevant at this period of time, hence Bing brought that back for a result. Anyone who walks around still calling Microsoft an evil company, or questioning why it is evil, is clearly still living in the past. Google being evil is much more relevant in this period of time.
And I am typing this from a Macbook Pro, and also own an iPhone, so I am in no means a Microsoft fanboy. I however do use Bing on Google Chrome for Mac.
And just for kicks and giggles, the issue is now fixed and questions like “Why is Windows so expensive” have been fixed as of August 5th and the results look pointless.
Well said
Microsoft is certainly moving in the right direction
How can a company founded by the founder of the largest, private philanthropy organization in the world be “evil”?
Come on people, Gates might have used some shady tactics in taking MS where it is, but he certainly isn’t spending all that money on yachts and private islands. He’s pretty much given off all his wealth to philanthropy.
“How can a company founded by the founder of the largest, private philanthropy organization in the world be “evil”?”
So your argument is basically the ends justify the means then?
I’m just glad our justice system doesn’t work the way your mind does!
No, it doesn’t.
http://www.bing...=&form=QBLE
Don’t be STUPID!
You can pick and choose queries that makes google algorithm seams ‘evil’ if you want!
I’ve started using Bing exclusively as of Sunday. I don’t know what happened to Google search. I don’t know if they switched algorithmns or what, but I performed identical searches on both Google and Bing and Bing retrieved what I needed. Google wasn’t even close.
I also lost faith in Google when I launched a website in June for a new product. I am only one of just three suppliers of this product. Even though my website gives people exactly what they want if they were looking to buy that product, my site doesn’t come up until maybe the fifth page when you search for my product. That is ridiculous.
In my opinion the quality of the Google search has really deteriorated.
Exactly, me too! I switched to Bing.
For me, it was all those spammy links on Google search results like scribd.com or squidoo.com that made me appreciate how clean the bing results are.
It’s good to see a rising player in search!
Same
More and more of my search results in Gmail are turning out to be link spam
Scribd, Mahalo and Squidoo are the cancer of the web.
I think its because they’ve some how defaulted the search on IE to bing, I don’t know how to undo it, and if you type an invalid domain name, it also takes you to bing, whereas before it would just say “domain not found”
Not exactly, I am using FF and have Bing my default.
Also, RTFM to learn how to change the default search engine in IE. It take just a minute to do so.
Uhh…I’m using IE8 and it just transferred my original search engine (Google). And when I mistype something, it automatically opens up Google.
yes it does
vist http://www.krazzed.com/ for xcitin wallpapers
Bing is my #1 choice of search engines. It is a happy, colorful and friendly experience. Loved the space shot on today’s search.
Bing is pretty good, it’s certainly good enough to be considered competition, and competition is a good thing. I believe we can expect to see a lot of innovation, soon, and from both sides.
On a more personal note, spread the search love with http://BINgooHoo.com
Bing team looks like is doing a really good work…
Well, now we know what a $100 million dollar ad campaign gets you. A 1% increase in search share. Bravo!
Well, given that 1% is worth 1B$… Pretty good investment.
What it actually bought was awareness. Enough awareness that people tried it out. And the experience was good enough that enough people are switching.
Remember, at the 1% point, we’re talking BILLIONS of queries. That’s more than $100MM would buy. Just ask Ask.com.
You’re pulling those numbers out of your ass, aren’t you? Regardless, MS monetizes search queries so poorly that each additional query at this point likely costs them money in infrastructure & bribes (a.k.a. cashback).
Does this count the contribution of facebook search?
Noticed recently that web search results back-off is now more prominent on facebook search. (which is now Bing). Wonder what the % contribution of this is.
I laughed at Bing at first, but more and more they are wining me over. The results on Google are bad but we have all used it for so long we can’t fathom anyone being better. Google needs to get their crap together and start giving better results.
With Bing’s nice video feature it sets it apart uniquely from what Google is doing. My current perception is that they both do things differently so it’s time to utilize the best of both worlds and see where it leads us. Now with Microsoft and Yahoo coming together they are apt to tighten up some more on Google. But at what cost? will it cause them to gain some ground collectively with their strategy only to lose it and come crashing down? We’ll have to keep a watch on it and see what happens with the new strategies.
Another retarded Microsoft effort. After spending nearly $120,000,000 in 2 months, Bing has only cracked a 1% gain of marketshare of the search engine space. I will give it another 9 months before Bing goes belly-up.
Bing won my heart, too. I guess that Powerset-thing is finally working.
After 100 million in advertising, bribing searchers to use Bing via cashback, and having IE8 automatically change default search over to Bing, all MS has to show is 1% gain in search share, primarily at the expense of their “partner” Yahoo.
Hilarious!
How exactly is gaining a 1% share, worth upwards of $1 Billion – “hilarious?” If you know how to turn $100 million into $1 billion in two months – I’d like to go into business with you.
Don’t parrot nonsense. That 1% share did not lead to $1 billion in profit, or even revenue. Bing’s profit per query is currently negative, so that extra 1% share has actually cost them money over the last 2 months. Even if you look at the extra revenue they have gained from that new share, the number is nowhere near $1 billion, not even close.
Just add up the search revenues of the big search engines. May also want to include Ask and some other search contributors. I haven’t done it (too lazy), but off the top of my head is probably a few hundred million per percentage point currently. Why doesn’t someone with some time crunch the numbers for us.
IE8 doesn’t change the default search to Bing, mine is still Google.
Bribing searchers? So are sites like Amazon “bribing” searchers through cheaper prices.
If you really wanna talk about bribing let’s talk about Google Checkout. Initially, Google used to give out $10 off of anything you bought via Google Checkout (this was a one-time thing though).
Get a life!
The difference between Amazon’s cheaper prices and MS cashback is that Amazon still makes money, while MS is losing it hand over fist.
And yes, Google Checkout did also have a cashback promotion a while back. The point is that you need to take all these things into consideration when analyzing “gains” in market share. In addition to looking at raw gains, everyone should also be asking how much did those gains really cost and are they likely to be sustainable?
What’s hilarious is all these astroturfing comments here.
“Bing is the greatest thing since the invention of the automobile.”
“Bing saved my children from a burning house.”
At least they could be a little more realistic, but I guess Microsoft was never known for attracting the best talent.
Lately I started hating google and was desperately waiting for some new player. Bing came and I was delighted. It was not like the overly hyped junky cuil. From day one of bing I started using it as my one more search engine. For many search queries I use Bing. The image search and video search, no can beat it. Also the google search craps out a lot of Adsense things on your screen which is a nonsense for me. I dont trust google and adsense any more. They became evil. I compared Bing is cleaner look and results like facebook. Google is like myspace cluttered with unwanted craps on the screen filling each and every corner of the screen with Ad(non)sense. Bingo Bingo Bingo…..
Bing is great… many great things to talk about:
CASHBACK…. I got $150 for my Plasma TV…
1) Homepage
2) no more 10 blue links
3) Left categories
4) Video Preview
5) Image – show similar images
6) Local
7) Travel
9) much more…
10) Goog is scared now…
watchout goog….
I have not find any “search engine results” changes in bing particularly for my website.
I publish atleast one article a day, but bing do not show that article even after weeks.
Google is much faster than bing…Bing needs lots of improvement..
Presently I think that bing’s share is rising as lots of advertising is done by bing and I guess ppl are curious and excited to try out new search engine.
Hey guys, I found a little secret of bing success.
MS emulate surfers by sending request to my site with http referer http://www.bing.com/search?q={keyword}.
Looks are not noticeable except for a few facts:
1) it is not indexing robot, i have different requests by msn-bot
2) it requests all the static files (images, styles, js files)
3) user-agent is random IE user aent
4) all IP’s are from MS datacenter
Here is my piece of access log with those requests filtered http://prudniko...es/bing-log.txt
I’m not sure how those analytics companies gathering information about SE popularity, but one idea in my mind is that they monitor access logs of big amount of popular sites which can receive similar requests.
What do you think about it?
The question one has to ask is, how much is it costing MS for this increase? Remember much of the traffic comes to bing within US is the “Cash back” offer. How long can they keep up? Convincing people to use a search engine exclusively to give cash back so users click on their ads and not actually use the search results. This has been a “no no” for PPC feed providers Google/Yahoo TOS to coax people to click on the ads.
Microsoft doing what Microsoft does best. Copying someone else’s idea. Can’t Microsoft come up with an idea of its own? Note: The table computer kind of stinks: http://www.msnb...om/id/18936536/
As a partner and fan of MS work, I have to agree. Microsoft’s model was always to emulate and improve rather than be first to invent.
See this two part blog post on the topic: http://techno-phoenix.com/?p=9
Without taking any side, it is always good to have more search engines than less. Suppose you are researching about a medical condition or a product, the more index you can use the more likely you may get to the truth.
And don’t forget that Jingle people. Bing… Bing… Bing goes the internet
I switched from Google to Bing. I use Google everything – even have their t-shirt. But I have grown so frustrated with their arrogance. The have become what Microsoft became in the ’90s. Their stock price is bloated out of all proportion. They support nothing. Try and get any type of support out of them. There is none.