Getting to Know Microsoft’s Bing

Other than just a fun word to say, Bing is the name of Microsoft’s new search engine.  Launched to much fanfare, Bing was first demonstrated on May 28, 2009 and went live on June 3, 2009, replacing Microsoft’s Live search.  Former Live search users will recognize the interactive background image on the main search page which changes daily, keeping things fresh and entertaining for the visitor.

Bing—which Microsoft calls a “decision engine”—has a number of interesting features that many users will appreciate. A Bing search query may return a set of mixed results including web, images, maps, shopping, news, videos and more.  Related searches are provided along the left column.  This mix of results is provided to help the researcher better define their search.  In the screen image below we have highlighted a Bing search for “daffodils“.

Bing search for "daffodils", click for full size image

What we like about Bing:

• A search query is returned quickly and, in our testing, search results appear to have a high relevancy to our query.
• Mixed media and related search suggestions are provided to help the researcher find what they want.  Mixed results are displayed in a clearly defined and logical fashion.
• Even though advertising for highly competitive terms may take up substantial screen space, Bing’s search advertising is clearly delimited and labeled as “Sponsored sites”.  Click on the thumbnail below for a full-size screen image.

  

• The word “bing” is known around the world with various uses and meanings.
• It’s an easy to read, pronounce and remember monosyllable, and uses a very short URL – all very good for marketing!
• Wiktionary defines bing as “a heap or pile”; good for a chuckle
• Archive.org has an interesting history of the domain.

Most importantly, they did not forget the community of users, webmasters and developers which are essential for the health and growth of Bing search:

• Bing community http://www.bing.com/community/
• Webmaster tools http://www.bing.com/webmaster/
• Bing search API http://www.bing.com/developers/

A bit of Bing data:

Even at this early time we can evaluate web analytic data and plot trends.  We polled data from a cross-section of industries – medical, tourism, security, municipality and of course our own web marketing site – and graphed the monthly percentage of search engine traffic referrals coming from MSN/Live/Bing as compared to the total search engine traffic received.  The chart below is the result of our data analysis.

Percentage of search engine referrals from Microsoft - MSN - Live - Bing

So far for the month of June 2009, relative search engine referral traffic from Microsoft search/Bing is noticeably down across most of the sites we polled.  If the general use of Microsoft search/Bing has not dramatically decreased and if our data is accurate, we may assume that Bing search results and traffic referrals for a number of disparate websites is changing.  If long range data and ranking analysis proves this to be true, changes initiated by Bing search may bring dramatic implications for search engine optimization and the entire search marketing industry.

It’s too early to tell what Bing’s entry into the search arena means for major players Google and Yahoo, but Bing’s early buzz has been very positive, with many praising the value of its results and overall user experience.  Historically both Yahoo and Microsoft have been vastly overshadowed by search giant Google, but Microsoft is placing major bets on Bing, which it plans to spend $80 million to $100 million to advertise, hoping to relate to search users and ultimately win them over.

Are you using Bing yet?  Tell us what you think about it!

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