How Bing is out-innovating Google

[Prince Charming]

So Bing! copies image search from Google, and it innovates when it makes a few cosmetic changes to it. Gotcha.

Hate to burst the bubble here, but Google pretty much copied Bing's image search layout.

[Anibal P]

Both engines give me bad results most of the time anyway. For example, you want to buy some transformers that aren't robots from cybertron. And of course both give you an onslaught of crappy blogs no matter what you're looking for. They need an option to filter out blogs entirely.

That's what you get for using generic terms, use complex terms and Google really shines

[LaP]

It's the other way around - the re-designed Google Image Search is a more or less direct copy of the Bing Image Search.

I hope people realise that 99% of the time companies don't innovate but improve upon products that already exist. Every companies do that. The redesigned Xbox controller (S) was a lot like the PS controller with small improvements.

[Solid Knight]

That's what you get for using generic terms, use complex terms and Google really shines

That only works if you know specifics about what you're searching for. There are times where you don't.

[jakem1]

That's what you get for using generic terms, use complex terms and Google really shines

That's not really the point though. Someone's given you an example of where Google search fails and you blame it on the user. Sure, at some point the user might have to rephrase their search but it would be better if the search engine gave them a few options on their first attempt and then guide them to the right set of results rather than assuming that the results are perfect or the user cocked up.

By the way, a search for the word transformers on Google and Bing brought up the following results:

- Google gave me a page of results related to the toys/movies

- Bing gave me details of where the movie is currently showing in my local area, a couple of links related to the toys/movies and then a Wikipedia entry on electrical transformers.

Neither got the search completely correct but Bing was closer. Unfortunately Bing's sidebar didn't have anything on electrical transformers but that's where I'd expect them to guide me to the desired set of results. Still, if I had to declare a winner here it would be Bing.

[sundayx Veteran]

I personally think the problem with Bing is the name, and maybe the looks.

[guru]

I personally think the problem with Bing is the name, and maybe the looks.

the problem with bing is relevance of search results.

[Omen1393]

Ok, you guys keep saying that Bing always has less relevant search results but let's compare them. To me, Bing returns a more relevant or at least equal search result for each one.

First Search Result: Denver

Bing

Google

Second Search Result: Google Acquisitions

Bing

Google

Third Search Result: 2^2^2^2^2

Bing

Google

Fourth Search Result: Flight to Dallas

Bing

Google

Fifth Search Result: Plants Vs. Zombies

Bing

Google

Sixth Search Result: Asus Laptop

Bing

Google

Seventh Search Result: Walmart

Bing

Google

Eight Search Result: Google

Bing

Google

Ninth Search Result: Rochester Institute of Technology

Bing

Google

Also, have any of you even tried out the new Bing Maps in Silverlight? It just blows Google Maps out of the water. Here's just one of the map apps that shows health risk factors in each state. Here's the cathedral of learning at university of pitt consisting of over 200 images with Photosynth integrated into Bing Maps

[Orange Battery]

I like Bing, but Google is my first choice.

[pezzonovante]

Bing is King. Google sucks balls. Thanks to Bing, I can stay away from all Google products.

[oceanmotion]

I don't use search engines for anything advanced so can't really say how they match up at that level. I've been using Bing over a few months now and it's been fine with the searches I did and Bing Maps was more accurate for me over Google recently. I think they may be quite close at certain levels and Bing certainly isn't a laughing stock. You can't go too wrong with either.

Good post Omen.

[thealexweb]

snip

The only one Bing wins in the maths question, all the others are draws except for Google's two wins.

[Eric Veteran]

Google FTW. Bing! is only good for advertisers, spam sites and spyware. Most of the results on Bing! return just that, with the intended site being quite down the list.

This "article" has everything but objectivity, just another praise the Microsoft advertising machine.

If you're searching for spyware and spam of course that's what you're going to find. What exactly are the search terms you're using that only return ads, spyware and spam? I get better and cleaner results with Bing than I ever got with Google. I don't even touch anything from them except for GMail anymore.

[oceanmotion]

The only one Bing wins in the maths question, all the others are draws except for Google's two wins.

Bing wins the Walmart one and the Dallas one at a quick glance.

[zhangm Supervisor]

The only thing that strikes me as stupid is brand loyalty, and that, at least, plants itself firmly between the chair and the keyboard.

I'm traitorous scum, and I use both engines for most of my searches.

[Matt]

at the end of the day, competition is great. ill use whatever suits me at the time.

[brentaal]

<snipped>

Bing lags far behind when using a localized version compared to Google.

[Omen1393]

The only one Bing wins in the maths question, all the others are draws except for Google's two wins.

Which one did google win at? Are you using the US Bing or another country because to me it looks like Bing has equal or better search results compared to Google.

#1:

Google shows a map to denver and pictures along with denver.org and other denver sites that bing displays as well.

Bing Shows a map of denver, it's official website, the weather, flight deals, attractions, and even a slideshow. Not to mention there is an events tab at the top that shows events going on in Denver.

#2

Google Shows a wiipedia page of google acquisitions and links that bing has as well.

Bing shows news of google acquisitions and then below that it actually shows images of specific companies google has acquired. Below that is the Wikipedia page of google acquisitions.

#3

Google links you to a page of 2+2 = 5

Bing gives you the answer.

#4

Google links you to tripadvisor, expedia and the usual flight finders.

Bing has it's own flight finder that will allow you to choose where you want to fly from, the date you want the flight to be and after it searches it will tell you whether to wait to buy or to buy now. Bing also has the usual links to expedia and tripadvisor.

#5

Google gives you a link to the Plants vs. Zombies website

Bing tells you the platforms, the genre, the rating, review ratings, and it also displays videos. Below that is news of Plants vs. zombies and below that is the website Bing also gives you a link to the P vs Z site and other relevant sites similar to google's results. It's also wroth noting that if you click on Plants Vs. Zombies on Bing you will get reviews and be able to get news, walkthroughs, cheats, and videos straight through bing. Also, if you type into bing "play plants vs. zombies" you can play the web version straight through bing with no ads, other than through the flash game itself.

#6

Both Bing and Google give you the option to Shop for Asus laptops and relevant Asus websites. I'd say this is about even.

#7

Both give you a map of where local walmarts are as well as phone numbers. But Bing gives you the customer service info and allows you to search within walmart straight through bing.

#8

Google links you to google.com and other google related websites.

Bing links you to Google.com but also lets you go to google images, gmail, news, maps, videos straight through Bing. It also lists products google owns as well as stock prices. In fact, you can even search google through bing in the searchbox.

#9

Google links you to RIT's website as well as the most common links on the website. It also allows you to search RITstraight through Google.

Bing allows you to get to the most common links on the website but it also gives you the RIT logo, the location, setting, type of school, education level, and then the admissions info. Straight through Bing I can see the acceptance rate, the enrollment rate and if I click on the orange admissions button I can get financial aid, graduation rate and directions to the campus. Also, if I go back to the Bing Search I can see from freebase (which uses wikipedia as the source) the mascot, motto, school colors, and when it was founded.

[DrunkenBeard]

In all honesty I think that the US version of Bing clearly out-performs Google, sadly the Non-US versions are poor jokes. When and if Microsoft ever decides to have all versions of Bing on the same level, then I'll consider using it.

[jakem1]

#4

Google links you to tripadvisor, expedia and the usual flight finders.

Bing has it's own flight finder that will allow you to choose where you want to fly from, the date you want the flight to be and after it searches it will tell you whether to wait to buy or to buy now. Bing also has the usual links to expedia and tripadvisor.

This raises a good point because it's another feature that Google's looking to copy with their recent acquisition of ITA. It's almost comical the way Google have been copying Bing lately.

[atsaunier]

i visited the bing maps a few mins ago (in the usa) and noticed they een updated with a whole new look to there maps, but i hadent found any feature changes

[Omen1393]

i visited the bing maps a few mins ago (in the usa) and noticed they een updated with a whole new look to there maps, but i hadent found any feature changes

Are you sure you're using the silverlight version and not the AJAX one? If you're running silverlight you should see the map-apps towards the bottom left.

This link should take you to the silverlight version, I put the photosynth app on top of it all as an example of one of the apps.

[TheElite]

Which one did google win at? Are you using the US Bing or another country because to me it looks like Bing has equal or better search results compared to Google.

#1:

Google shows a map to denver and pictures along with denver.org and other denver sites that bing displays as well.

Bing Shows a map of denver, it's official website, the weather, flight deals, attractions, and even a slideshow. Not to mention there is an events tab at the top that shows events going on in Denver.

#2

Google Shows a wiipedia page of google acquisitions and links that bing has as well.

Bing shows news of google acquisitions and then below that it actually shows images of specific companies google has acquired. Below that is the Wikipedia page of google acquisitions.

#3

Google links you to a page of 2+2 = 5

Bing gives you the answer.

#4

Google links you to tripadvisor, expedia and the usual flight finders.

Bing has it's own flight finder that will allow you to choose where you want to fly from, the date you want the flight to be and after it searches it will tell you whether to wait to buy or to buy now. Bing also has the usual links to expedia and tripadvisor.

#5

Google gives you a link to the Plants vs. Zombies website

Bing tells you the platforms, the genre, the rating, review ratings, and it also displays videos. Below that is news of Plants vs. zombies and below that is the website Bing also gives you a link to the P vs Z site and other relevant sites similar to google's results. It's also wroth noting that if you click on Plants Vs. Zombies on Bing you will get reviews and be able to get news, walkthroughs, cheats, and videos straight through bing. Also, if you type into bing "play plants vs. zombies" you can play the web version straight through bing with no ads, other than through the flash game itself.

#6

Both Bing and Google give you the option to Shop for Asus laptops and relevant Asus websites. I'd say this is about even.

#7

Both give you a map of where local walmarts are as well as phone numbers. But Bing gives you the customer service info and allows you to search within walmart straight through bing.

#8

Google links you to google.com and other google related websites.

Bing links you to Google.com but also lets you go to google images, gmail, news, maps, videos straight through Bing. It also lists products google owns as well as stock prices. In fact, you can even search google through bing in the searchbox.

#9

Google links you to RIT's website as well as the most common links on the website. It also allows you to search RITstraight through Google.

Bing allows you to get to the most common links on the website but it also gives you the RIT logo, the location, setting, type of school, education level, and then the admissions info. Straight through Bing I can see the acceptance rate, the enrollment rate and if I click on the orange admissions button I can get financial aid, graduation rate and directions to the campus. Also, if I go back to the Bing Search I can see from freebase (which uses wikipedia as the source) the mascot, motto, school colors, and when it was founded.

Wow. Impressive. Does this stuff work for the UK as well?

I will switch completely when it does.

[Omen1393]

Wow. Impressive. Does this stuff work for the UK as well?

I will switch completely when it does.

Some of it does work on the UK site but most of it doesn't sadly. What's extremely ironic is that if I search London on Bing in the UK I don't get an instance answer like the maps, weather, flight prices etc. But if I search London on the US site I do. You can easily just set your region to the US and get all the features though, it shouldn't detract from the experience too much.

[Julius Caro]

I like Bing shaking things up a little, but:

- The background thing is silly. Sure, google looks like they were heavily inspired by bing when they enabled them automatically. But the LOADS of complaints seem to suggest that people just dont like the backgrounds. So much for innovation if it's an useless feature that nobody wants to use.

- if google announced "hours later" they were adding twitter support, then how does it look desperate? if the "hours later" is literal, that only means bing beat them to the punch when it came to announce it

#3

Google links you to a page of 2+2 = 5

Bing gives you the answer.

Both work the same to me. And that's one Bing snatched from google.

You know, it's nice to see Bing working so well. But Bing was designed with google in mind. the "web | images | videos" options on top of the search bar? Google. hell, image search is probably google's. using the search bar as a calculator for one line expressions? google too.

"did you mean?" google.

Bing is more google than everything. Even if they have a random background