Comments on: Microsoft Bing: Much better than expected

A test drive of the new Bing search engine reveals a solid and enjoyable product.

[frobation]

mmmm sorry to tell you microsoft but google will always be better then you...
simply caus google loads faster and google.com is much faster to type then microsoft.com

Good luck against Yahoo though :)

[manojlds]

Eh? What does the time for typing microsoft.com have to do with Bing??

[Vegaman_Dan]

And tyiping bing.com takes even less time than it does to type in Google.com. Your point is off.

[seo-melbourne]

I think that search will become more interesting with Bing! There are a number of new value added features in Bing which will make the search experience better. What that means is that more people will use internet for shopping, videos and location based searches. It is always good to have two search engines instead of one. Personally, I like Yahoo Answers too! Variety is the spice of life and so bing it on!

From an SEO perspective, the focus will be on comprehensive content. I am all for better websites showing up on search results than the ones which get the maximum number of links.

[yanxo]

GOOGLE is for BING what the I-TOUCH is for ZUNE and there was no need to make that much noise about Bing, it was first MSN, then Live or KUMO or whatever, then BING , but GOOGLE is still the killer.
next time its gonna be called BANG .

I hope they dont forget that GOOGLE is NOT SIMPLY a Search Engine, they will have to come up with stuff like GOOGLE DOCS,10000 of open source GOOGLE APIs, GOOGLE CALENDARS., YOUTUBE, GOOGLE TALK, GOOGLE TRANSLATE etc...... . THere is a Lot to do to compete fellas.

[Vegaman_Dan]

I would suggest you type into your search engine, "Getting your point across without annyoing CAPITAL LETTERS."

[spinoza2]

I think Microsoft really wanted to call their new service "Bling", but in typical MS fashion they blundered and misspelled it. Having search services like WolframAlpha and Bing give structured answers is fine as something to play around with, but I'm sure glad Google is around for getting *real* search results; just imagine how pathetic our use of the Internet would be if we were still bumbling around with AltaVista, Lycos, WolframAlpha, Bing, and the like!

[megallina]

Just imagine how pathetic our use of the Internet would be if new companies never challenged the market leader, causing the market leader to either get better or get a new, better market leader.

[ogman]

They really shouldn't start the PR blitz until it's actually available. By the time it's actually up, I will have done what I do with all Microsoft search efforts; I will have forgotten about it.

[YankeePoodle]

I am tempted to say that Bing might have picked couple tricks from Hulu in terms of Organization of content/results. I have to agree, the most important step for Bing is to no upend Google, but they are going after Yahoo! Expect Bing to overtake Yahoo! search by the end of the year at least in the states. Once they are an established #2 players, they can cajole the advertisement executives and other interests who do not want a google search monopoly to come around Microsoft. OfCourse it will take lot of indexing and crawling by BingBots, to match Google. For now I think it has positioned well in terms of displacing Yahoo! from #2.

[C_Urrea]

"In search presentation, Bing wins." Fail: graphically intensive in comparison to Google. Therefore will take relatively longer to load and assemble.

"--display refined versions of your query down the left side of the page." Fail: Google has that at top and bottom of each page.

"Bing also pop ups an excerpt of the text on a search result if you hover over it." Fail: Using FireFox with "Clue View" plug in is exactly the same.

"When you want to shop for an item, both services have very strong "shopping" tabs that organize results well. Google gives you seller ratings, which Bing doesn't. But Bing offers a cashback program, which is hard to beat" Fail: You can't buy friends.

"Bing also does very well in at least one area where Google should do better. The video search result page for "Thomas Jefferson" in Google gives you a vertical list of videos. On Bing, you get a big grid that's easier to scan, and a list of related videos on the left for "George Washington," "James Madison," and so on. The search results are about equivalent, but Bing's presentation is far superior. "
Fail: Google has option buttons to list in the same way. "List view" and "Grid view".

Where is the cross browser compatibility test? Result speed? Platform compatibility? OS compatibility?

without Microsoft and Yahoo, how can you expect Google to keep on improve their product?

For consumer like me, the best outcome would be the three search engines divide the market evenly, so that they have enough desire to improve their products.

Microsoft does a good job at least on some areas, such as bird eyes on Live Map, and Cashback. Their search results sometimes are even better than those from Google.

[C_Urrea]

"In search presentation, Bing wins." Fail: graphically intensive in comparison to Google. Therefore will take relatively longer to load and assemble.

"--display refined versions of your query down the left side of the page." Fail: Google has that at top and bottom of each page.

"Bing also pop ups an excerpt of the text on a search result if you hover over it." Fail: Using FireFox with "Clue View" plug in is exactly the same.

"When you want to shop for an item, both services have very strong "shopping" tabs that organize results well. Google gives you seller ratings, which Bing doesn't. But Bing offers a cashback program, which is hard to beat" Fail: You can't buy friends.

"Bing also does very well in at least one area where Google should do better. The video search result page for "Thomas Jefferson" in Google gives you a vertical list of videos. On Bing, you get a big grid that's easier to scan, and a list of related videos on the left for "George Washington," "James Madison," and so on. The search results are about equivalent, but Bing's presentation is far superior. "
Fail: Google has option buttons to list in the same way. "List view" and "Grid view".

Where is the cross browser compatibility test? Result speed? Platform compatibility? OS compatibility?

[morton101]

competition causes prices to fall and quality to raise

[knowles2]

I would use but cannot stand the name so will not use. I mean for all the money Microsoft got and they could think of a better name.

But I did notice that they have learnt one thing and is people do not like microsoft, which does show up in any of the screen caps.

But is there anything there google probably could not do with a month or so worth of work nope not really. I actually learn ages ago if you want news you use there news search for it, shopping you just use there shopping search simple really.

[a_flores]

Whether Google or Bing or Yahoo, they failed to satisfy me on searching pictures. Seems that they just calculate the file name of the picture and do not include pictures tags on searching. That's why if I wanna search pics, I go to Flickr or Webshots or Photobucket, not to Google or Bing or Yahoo.

[basharShboul]

Hey guys, it is not a matter of indexing, mostly it is about Ranking, google had already opened up their ranking technique to the world, and you can see that in a book which you can buy from any near library. Mostly, i can say that Google was my best helper in research till now, however, Yahoo was most effective when i was digging deep in the history looking in the web boarders. Moreover, Google can give you same results if you just search with the relevance feedback link, or "Similar Pages" link, and sometimes even better results than other engines, however, that is not always the case.

I think opening up the market for competition is a very good practice, even though transfering to the new technology is always hard. With some advertising and marketing Bing can reach a diffusion point in a very short time. Let's hope to see a more efficient and effective search engine than now..

[Proud_Geek]

"Bing"? As in "Bada bing"? I see Microsoft's marketing department's been watching Sopranos on Netflix!

I guess this is leading up to a brilliant albeit short-lived commercial featuring a "Google" character being told that he "disrespected the Bing..."

[EcuadorHomesOnline]

Repeating my comment from yesterday's article - I usually get better search results from live.com than I do from Google anyway, so I'm looking forward to seeing the improvements in Bing (Yahoo is the WORST by far!).

However, as an advertiser, I love Google's tools. That's why Google is winning - they make it easy for the people who are paying their bills. The advertisers are Google's REAL customers, not the users. Microsoft is catching up in this area as well, their tools have gotten better - but they need to pay more attention to the hand that feeds them.

[cosuna]

So know we must trust Microsoft on our decisions? They decided on "Vista". They decided to enter search when it was too late. Now they have decided they can reinvent Office products into Web offerings, Ray Ozzie's "Software and Services" initiative.

I hope Bing goes well, cause it starts with a very bad ancestry from Microsoft and a very strange name, and, believe it or not: no Windows or Microsoft reference.

Competition is good, and let make sure Google know that, but in the end, this is a whole new different ball game. Just like IBM created the PC, but lost it to Compaq, HP and Dell, I think that Microsoft could be in an equal road path.

So don't worry, Bing's never is gonna be 100% IE and never is gonna be completely better than Google, just like Zune. They just copy the current version of Google (and iPod), but the creator has always some new cards up its sleeve.

My two bing cents.

[midcel]

Does google or microsoft care that millions of people need ebay alternative? Being is fine, but we need something that makes us money, and right now ebay chokes sellers to death with their fees and changes, and no one cares that we need another auction site. Cano somebody send this message to the heads of google and microsoft to give ebay a slap on the face so that they wake up with the fact that they have become opressive.

[midcel]

I get more traffice to my site from live.com then google.

[compguy74]

Search results for "microsoft bing":

Bing.com shows up as follows:

Google: #5
Live: #2
Yahoo: Not on first page

[luisama5]

i was thinking in visit Bing so i can find the usual microsoft mistakes and talk about all of them... but just starting thinking about it made me feeling sick.
what i find ironic is that microsoft always talk down linux because it only have 1% of PC market share, that is about the same microsoft market share had in searching... and linux has not spend billions of dollars in PR.

also can anyone tell me how cnet always had good reviews of microsoft products, even vista got great talk, reviews and previews... and everyone see where vista stands now.

[patchman10]

@Luis
Its not only Cnet that gave it a great review, Its hard to find a bad review for Bing, only from users who have not even used it, because it is very well done even Steve W ozniak (U know who that is?) gave it his endorsement. Luis check it out:

"Woz-Bing! Apple Co-Founder a "Big Fan" of Microsoft's New Search Engine"
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/255750/Woz-Bing