Bing: One Year Later
Wednesday, June 9th, 2010
By Matt Dally, Search Strategist
“Search overload is over.” It was one year ago, on June 1, 2009, that Microsoft re-launched its search engine, previously known as Live Search, and bravely declared it a “decision engine” in a $100 million marketing campaign executed by JWT.
If the campaign didn’t achieve overnight success, it at least made Bing an overnight celebrity. Everybody wanted to know more about it. People tried it. Clients began asking about their rankings in Microsoft’s search engine. And SEOs, in turn, wanted to know how to optimize for Bing. The question was, would people really stop using Google and turn to Bing?
One year later, Bing’s share of searches has crept up from 9% to 13%, according to Nielsen, although this was almost entirely at the expense of Yahoo, whose search algorithm and ads will be replaced by Bing’s by the end of the year, thus giving Microsoft control of another 18% of the market. Rumors persist that Apple will make Bing the default search engine on the iPhone, dumping Google as the mobile war between the two companies intensifies. This would be a huge win for Microsoft, but it’s a hell-freezes-over scenario that has yet to materialize. But the fact that Microsoft has bagged one major deal and may be on the verge of another is a sign of how far Bing has come. Can you imagine anyone ever taking rumors of a Live Search-iPhone deal seriously?
Yet despite making progress bit by bit, when you ask the average person about Bing these days, you get a shrug or a “My mom uses it.” There are exceptions. I’ve started using Bing for driving directions, having found Google to be increasingly unreliable since they ditched TeleAtlas and decided to rely on their own data and crowdsourcing for Google Maps. Several of my friends say they like Bing’s Farecast feature for travel planning. But I suspect this is how many people use Bing these days – as an occasional alternative. People just like Google because it works. And people are accustomed to Google’s search results and so view them as the “right” results. When they go to Bing and see sites come up different from what they’re used to, it feels like they’re driving an unfamiliar rental car where all the buttons and switches are in the “wrong” places. And then they go back to Google after their brief Bing vacation.
So perhaps it is more notable what Google has done since Bing launched. They’ve moved their search ads closer to the organic results, incorporated more “instant answers” into results, mixed in real-time updates, and added a left sidebar. As I write this article, Google is even giving users the ability to upload a pretty photo as their Google homepage background – all very Bing-esque, but good luck getting Google to admit it has anything to do with that other search engine.
For the first time in years, Google has stopped gaining search share and faces serious competition. Google is being forced to innovate at a faster pace. Even if you’re not using Bing, Bing has had a significant impact on your search results. Whether Bing can take market share directly from Google will largely depend on its ability to improve its search results and add compelling new features, and whether or not Yahoo can successfully bring visitors back to its portal.
Our bet is that Google keeps its lead, but with a 30% market share forthcoming and new innovations in its pipeline, Bing is something that no search marketer can afford to ignore. Not a bad first year for Microsoft’s reincarnated search engine. Happy birthday, Bing!













Since its introduction in 1996, Flash has become one of the most widely-used platforms on the Internet for web animations, web design, and website development. Though its use is not search engine friendly (with only the recent ability from Google to index links within Flash), the benefits of Flash have propelled its use around the globe. However, there is a dark side of Flash that you should know about: Flash can potentially run third-party scripts that gather your website’s information without your knowledge.