Most of us probably use Google all the time for doing web searches. While we might only use Bing to search out about something that Google fails to show up (quite a rare case). Undoubtedly, Google is the KING of the search engine market, while Bing stands as the 2nd top search engine. But Bing’s 2nd top search engine rank does not imply that it is a serious competitor to Google. To catch up with Google, Bing has to do a lot, which surprisingly Microsoft is doing presently. Microsoft is investing heavily in its Bing search engine and improving a lot of things. In this blog, we will evaluate Bing and Google under different criteria and see whether we should give Bing a second chance.
1.Market Share
If we talk about market share, Google dominates the market with 92.2% search engine market share worldwide. On the other hand, Bing stands at 2.27%, followed by Yahoo (powered by Bing) 1.5%. This implies that Bing needs growth of over 24X to reach the Google position of today. Having more market shares of the search engine means you are getting more search volume, so you can collect more data about what people are searching for. This lets the search engine optimize its results. Therefore, Google has a significant lead in this point.
2.Name Recognition
Google has been in the digital market since 1998 and it never changed its name. Its name has become so common that instead of saying “I will search it in Google”, people usually say “I will Google it”. On the other hand, Bing has a history of name changes. It started as MSN Search, then Windows Live Search, then Bing, and now Microsoft Bing. This probably didn’t let Bing get the name recognition as that of Google.
3.Home Page Quality
Google home page is simple and efficient, which encourages you to quickly make the search. There are not many graphics involved with the Google home page. On the other hand, Bing’s home page is more flashy with a graphical picture that gets changed every day. In addition, the Bing home page provides you the latest news, which you can minimize along with further customize your home page. Overall, the Bing home page seems more attractive compared to the Google home page.
4.Popular Queries
It is reported that most of the popular queries of search engines are related to branded or navigational queries. To your surprise, Bing’s most popular query is “Google”. This means that people first search Google in Bing, open Google home page from it, and then search their main query.
5.Tail Queries
Tail queries are those queries that are not searched a lot. This is where Google takes lead over all other search engines. If you search about something random that isn’t a popular query, then you will still find out the best possible results of your query. On the other hand, if you search the same query in Bing, you will probably be disappointed with the results. One reason is that Google has high market shares, so it knows better what people search for and can present better and most-relatable results.
6.Video Search
When you conduct a video search in Google, it is not that visual. You don’t get to preview videos, and when you click a video, it takes you to another website. On the other hand, if you conduct a video search in Bing, then it presents more visual results, where you can see video highlights by bringing the mouse close to it. When you click a video, it gets opened in Bing, so it allows you to easily navigate to other videos quickly.
7.Image Search
In the image search, both Google and Bing provide great results along with other filtration options, such as size, color, type, time, usage rights, etc. But when you click an image in Google, it shows the image preview on the right side, while still shows you the list of other images. On the other hand, when you click an image in Bing, it shows a full-page preview. So, some might like Google’s way of preview, while others might like Bing’s way of preview. Therefore, we cannot make anyone a winner in this criterion.
8.Search Answers
If you search for “latest movies” both in Google and Bing, they will show you the best possible results. Whether it’s a search about the weather, address, or something else, they both provide top-notch search answers. In short, they pretty much tie in this criterion.
9.Shopping Queries
If you search any shopping query, both Google and Bing again provide top-notch results. They give you a handful of options to pick from. So, here again, they tie in this criterion.
10.More Fun Search Engine
Other than providing us top-notch search results, shouldn’t the search engines be fun to use? Google takes a clear advantage here. For example, if you search “Google in 1998”, it will show you Google’s interface of 1998. If you search “Do a barrel roll”, Google will actually do it. Similarly, there are plenty of other searches that Google turns into a fun activity. On the other hand, Bing has no such fun activity integrated into it. So, Google is a big winner here.
11.Rewards
Microsoft is offering a reward program known as Microsoft Rewards that lets you earn money when you use the Bing search engine. So, the more you use Microsoft Edge and the more you use Bing, the more you can earn. Microsoft is probably using this tactic to gain the attention of internet users and increase its search engine market shares. But since, we don’t see such kind of reward program by Google, so Bing takes a leading edge here.
Wrapping Up
From all the above evaluation criteria, one thing you might notice is that both Google and Bing are investing heavily in their search engines. It’s the environment of competition that is urging search engines to offer more to their users. But which one you should pick? Google is undoubtedly the best search engine in the present era, but Bing is seeing great improvements. But we cannot suggest you pick the one we recommend because for some Google seems perfect, while others might consider Bing better. So, you can review the above criteria and pick the one that meets your searching needs effectively.
