What Do You Think of BING, Microsoft's New Search Engine?

[SweetiePie]

We came up number two for our town for bed and breakfast, so I think it's a big improvement. Might just give Google a run for its money. We do well on Google as well, but it has become too commercialized. The top listings are the ones who can pay for them now. I've never paid for a listing since I've been open. We came up on the first page in all other categories as well. Yes!

 

[EmptyNest]

never heard of it or used it..but will take a look now.

 

[swirt]

THis is the 4th time that I can remember MS rebuilding their search engine to be the next Google slayer...each time they have never managed to garner more than 4-5% of the usage. I looked at www.bing.com. All they did was take ASK Jeeves style category suggestions and throw them off to the side of a nice big slow graphic. Modeling Bing after the #4 search engine (Ask) is not the way to beat the #1 search engine. People don't want slow...they want to get in and get searching and move on. Google has understood that from the very beginning.
The results seem similar to Google...nothing earth shatteringly different (minor differences in order but it is still pretty much the same major players on the first page for searches). Nothing that is going to cause people to abandon old habits of using Google.
Where I see a bad difference is in the age of the data. Example, if I look at the cache dates for the home page of this site on google, I find that Google visits and caches the home page for this site at least once a day. The cache date for this site on Bing is 6 days ago. Web results do not get better with age.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love for there to be more search engines with more users spread among them. I just don't think Bing is going to be the one.

 

[swirt]

The top listings are the ones who can pay for them now.
Just wanted to be clear on this. You can't pay to be listed on top unless you are talking about appearing in the AdWords section.
You might be talking figuratively in that paying to be listed in directories to get incoming links, or paying to have a site optimized... these things can help. But you can't pay Google to list you on the front page in the organic section of the results.

 

[YellowSocks]

I come up first (which is nice) but I'm not listed as a business (now I gotta figure out why).
Fox News reports that the autoplay feature of videos could be problematic considering the amount of porn out there... http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,524019,00.html?test=latestnews
=)
Kk.

 

[SweetiePie]

The top listings are the ones who can pay for them now.
Just wanted to be clear on this. You can't pay to be listed on top unless you are talking about appearing in the AdWords section.
You might be talking figuratively in that paying to be listed in directories to get incoming links, or paying to have a site optimized... these things can help. But you can't pay Google to list you on the front page in the organic section of the results..

I guess it's just a coincidence then that those who buy Google AdWords end up also being listed on the first page when they weren't there before. Perhaps this is just happening in my town.

 

[swirt]

The top listings are the ones who can pay for them now.
Just wanted to be clear on this. You can't pay to be listed on top unless you are talking about appearing in the AdWords section.
You might be talking figuratively in that paying to be listed in directories to get incoming links, or paying to have a site optimized... these things can help. But you can't pay Google to list you on the front page in the organic section of the results..

I guess it's just a coincidence then that those who buy Google AdWords end up also being listed on the first page when they weren't there before. Perhaps this is just happening in my town.
.

Yep just coincidence, same as it is coincidence when others accuse that they intentionally don't show good listings for people that do pay for adwords as a way to keep them paying for adwords.
It has been pretty well documented over the years that conspiracy theories on both sides are false. The Adwords engine and organic engine are two completely different entities that do not share data back and forth.

 

[SweetiePie]

The top listings are the ones who can pay for them now.
Just wanted to be clear on this. You can't pay to be listed on top unless you are talking about appearing in the AdWords section.
You might be talking figuratively in that paying to be listed in directories to get incoming links, or paying to have a site optimized... these things can help. But you can't pay Google to list you on the front page in the organic section of the results..

I guess it's just a coincidence then that those who buy Google AdWords end up also being listed on the first page when they weren't there before. Perhaps this is just happening in my town.
.

Yep just coincidence, same as it is coincidence when others accuse that they intentionally don't show good listings for people that do pay for adwords as a way to keep them paying for adwords.
It has been pretty well documented over the years that conspiracy theories on both sides are false. The Adwords engine and organic engine are two completely different entities that do not share data back and forth.
.

Not a theory, conspiracy or otherwise; just my observation.

 

[Don Draper]

The top listings are the ones who can pay for them now.
Just wanted to be clear on this. You can't pay to be listed on top unless you are talking about appearing in the AdWords section.
You might be talking figuratively in that paying to be listed in directories to get incoming links, or paying to have a site optimized... these things can help. But you can't pay Google to list you on the front page in the organic section of the results..

I guess it's just a coincidence then that those who buy Google AdWords end up also being listed on the first page when they weren't there before. Perhaps this is just happening in my town.
.

Yep just coincidence, same as it is coincidence when others accuse that they intentionally don't show good listings for people that do pay for adwords as a way to keep them paying for adwords.
It has been pretty well documented over the years that conspiracy theories on both sides are false. The Adwords engine and organic engine are two completely different entities that do not share data back and forth.
.

Not a theory, conspiracy or otherwise; just my observation.
.

I completely trust Swirt's analysis of this because I know he has no agenda about it...but my personal observation matches SP's, namely that those who pay for Adwords seem to show up on the first page. How would we ever know???

 

[swirt]

The top listings are the ones who can pay for them now.
Just wanted to be clear on this. You can't pay to be listed on top unless you are talking about appearing in the AdWords section.
You might be talking figuratively in that paying to be listed in directories to get incoming links, or paying to have a site optimized... these things can help. But you can't pay Google to list you on the front page in the organic section of the results..

I guess it's just a coincidence then that those who buy Google AdWords end up also being listed on the first page when they weren't there before. Perhaps this is just happening in my town.
.

Yep just coincidence, same as it is coincidence when others accuse that they intentionally don't show good listings for people that do pay for adwords as a way to keep them paying for adwords.
It has been pretty well documented over the years that conspiracy theories on both sides are false. The Adwords engine and organic engine are two completely different entities that do not share data back and forth.
.

Not a theory, conspiracy or otherwise; just my observation.
.

I completely trust Swirt's analysis of this because I know he has no agenda about it...but my personal observation matches SP's, namely that those who pay for Adwords seem to show up on the first page. How would we ever know???
.

Usually they show up because if they are actively paying money for adwords, they are also actively getting incoming links, paying for directory listings, paying an SEO or designer, going after press releases and all the other stuff to get where they need to be.
Sure some people just throw money willy-nilly at adwords and don't do all the other stuff to improve their organic position and they are the ones that are nowhere near the first page organic listings so they pay to be in Adwords. However the ones with a serious multi-pronged marketing approach will do everything they can to get good organic placement.
Neither "conspiracy" theory (the one that says Adwords improves organic position and the one that says it hurts organic position) would be in Google's best interest. Especially since there would be a conflict of interest that would get them into deep legal doo doo in 50 states and hundreds of countries. That level of manipulation would be pretty obvious to those who make a living at large scale SEO and watch this kind of thing across thousands of sites.
Added: It is kind of like watching ice cream sales volume and crime rates. If those are the only two things you look at, you would conclude either that ice cream causes crime, or being criminal things gives you a hankering for ice cream. Of course thats the way it looks until you realize that both are related to warmer temperatures. More crime in the summer, more ice cream sold in the summer. (now I'm hungry)