What's the Thing About Bing?

Have you wondered about Bing, the new search effort by Microsoft?

Hyped to the tune of over $100 million, Bing is MSN's latest attempt to create a search engine that gets significant market share from its more formidable rivals - namely Google and Yahoo!.

How is Bing doing? One analysis by Hitwise ranked Bing as the 17th most popular website out of 450,000. StatCounter said Bing was third behind Google and Yahoo! ComScore said that Bing increased MSN's average daily searcher penetration from just under 14% to15.5%. This increse is happening while Microsoft is spending a huge amount on promotion. What will happen when the campaign ends? Will people return to their old habits and use Google and Yahoo!?

Most reviewers like Bing. One reviewer liked the shopping comparison tool. Another said that searchers who want more refined results may gravitate to Bing. Most commented on the streamlined look and interactive image on the homepage: searchers can click on parts of the image for retrieve trivia, maps, facts or additional links. Still, the search function itself produces results that are similar to Google and Yahoo!.

Some reviewers take a wait and see attitude. No one knows if Bing with negatively affect existing Google and Yahoo! rankings. And it seems certain that Google will still be king of the search engines. Besides, Microsoft has a history of mediocre success in the search field. Naturally, there are skeptics.

We will all see whether this is yet another flop for Microsoft.

from SEOmoe.com