Comments on: Microsoft Bing thinks Molly Wood is NSFW

To Microsoft Bing, Molly Wood is an unsafe search. But I can't prove otherwise without turning off safe search mode. Catch-22!

[KatoKatonian]

At least you're an adorable puppy, so there's that.

[Dom Barnes]

Probably a smart idea. Just had a look and without scrolling there is already one NSFW picture, and it only gets worse. Eeek

[Zer0Wolf]

One? I turned off Safe Search and it was FILLED with hardcore photos! And stupid yours truly was at work! Anyway, not my mistake :-p
BTW, poor Microsoft, it tried to brand Live Search as Bing so that MS was distanced from the product and look at the title of this story still....

[garce1]

yikes

[Boomstickedition]

I just binged Molly Wood(I know that just sounds wrong for some reason) and yes I see images of the porn star mixed with Cnet Star but it is mostly the porn star. I think the porn star should make a guest appearance on BOL with the "real" Molly Wood. :) At least with with the safe search turned off we now get a wide variety of Molly Woods to look at right?

[PacGamer]

So does this mean that Google is /still/ the one and only good search? I think Google has this category closed up.

[Super2online]

So one search, on one persons name proves to you that Google has the search engine business all closed up huh? Life must be really simple for you, lol!

[Grifter02]

Yes, life is pretty simple when you use the best search engine (Google) and you always find what you're looking for.

[kevwil]

I share my name with a gay porn star, a psychic, 4 football players, a basketball player, a comedian, a famous guitar player, and a minister. One would think that since I'm the developer I should be able to hack my SEO results or something, but I don't care enough to do anything about it. I kinda feel your pain, Molly!

[MadLyb]

There are many ways of defining relevance and I don't think any search engine (Yahoo, Bing, etc.) should be measured strictly against Google results. I like Google and it is my primary search engine, but if your goal to exactly replicate their results then you bring nothing new to the table.

What I am hoping is MS is not shooting for Googleness, but Google++ with Bing. So, let's stop for a moment and think about relevance and traffic. Would more people be looking for Molly Wood at Cnet or Molly Wood the porn star? No offense, but I think the latter, so she should be higher in relevance.

Now, the SafeSearch issue needs to be fixed because it is very annoying.

[cholsu]

MadLyb, well though and matured comment . Make a total sense!!

[Dalkorian]

So, you're saying it's better because it returns fewer results ... why?

[JimmyJoeJohnson]

If you modify your results to "just faces" alot of the porn disappears.

[BIGELLOW]

Just be careful you don't make a typo and select "just facials".

[Super2online]

Microsoft and Google's default setting is set to moderate safe search. Doing so yields better results for different search criteria. In the case of "Molly Wood", Microsoft would give you to many images that would be inappropriate for young eyes, hence the result Molly shows in her screen shot. This is an appropriate response for Microsoft in my opinion. Google shows the Molly images she is looking for with no need to change the settings.

However, lets do the same search only for video this time. With both search engines still set at moderate, Microsoft returns the same page, a warning about content and the option to change the safe setting. No explicit images are shown. However, when I do search on Google, the second page reveals an xxx rated image in the fouth postion.

My point here is that no search engine, not even Google gets it's right all the time.

[BIGELLOW]

True, but so far the real-life examples of where Bing fails where Google succeeds are outnumbering the real-life examples of where Google fails and Bing succeeds. Certainly, you can come up with obscure searches where Bing succeeds and Google fails, but these aren't common real-life examples. People searching for Molly Wood is an expected type of search. People searching for "cheap tickets from san jose to las vegas" is not a realistic scenario. Most know to just go to the best vertical search service for that which happens to be Expedia. Microsoft should just stick to these types of verticals, which they are good at. Leave the general finding of information on the web to Google.

I welcome the competition... I really do... but each time a Cuil or Wikia Search or Bing tries to win the spotlight for a few months, it just gets a bit disheartening that this is the best that today's innovative computer engineers can come up with after years of research. The most impressive project I've seen to date is Wolfram Alpha, and even they were smart enough to stick to being a vertical (computational engine) and not try to be a place to search for general information like the latest news on Britney Spears or what your latest symptoms mean.

MapQuest is an example of a business that decided to rest on their laurels. There was more that could be done with maps, but they just sat on what they had. Google improved maps and have pretty much taken maps to a whole new level. As a result, they are now number one. Sure, Yahoo is also a "me too" and Microsoft is also a "me too"... but at this point, unless Microsoft or Yahoo can do something SUBSTANTIALLY better (not just slightly better or quite neat), they're just wasting their talent. We don't need every corporation that has lots of money to throw around to keep reinventing the same wheel over and over and over and over again, each trying to proclaim that THEIR wheel is the best... etc... instead, once one group has created a superb wheel that cannot be substantially improved upon, we need the other group to try to invent wings... and another group to invent teleportation... etc... this game of copy-cat is just a waste of computer engineering.

[happygolucky101lol]

:O Bing might be as good as Google for others, but to me, like most other Microsoft products, SUCK. (Except Office 2007, but iWork still is better)

[stacks1497]

why couldnt you just search for "molly wood cnet" ?

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=molly+wood+cnet&FORM=BIFD#

[rcrusoe]

IMO, Molly is definitely SFW. Even on those rare occasions when I catch her on a live podcast.

OTOH, after trying several Bing searches, I find that it definitely NSFW (if I want to do my job properly). It is definitely better than most of Microsoft's "me too" products, but not enough to make me switch.

BTW, why would MS use a name for their new service that means "jail" or "drug paraphernalia"?

[SlimGem]

Hey Molly, try entering "should I use a Mac or PC".

Maybe this is why Bing doesn't acknowledge you; it apparently likes Apple.

[Inconnux]

LOL too funny :) I just about fell out my chair laughing!

[scrubbingbubbles]

Lets stop talking bad about Bing....after all they did have an AWESOME bingathon....not that I or anyone else watched it that is...

[karpenterskids]

I actually did...lol...it was as pathetic as it sounds, though.

[queticomn]

cnet, will do anything to make other search engines worthless an glorify google.

[tm_anon]

Imagine you're a 13 year old. Like most kids these days, you do a search for your name. Now, imagine you just happen to be named Adrianna Lynn.

If you search Google, you'll find lots of people named Adrianna Lynn, if you look for pictures, you might even see a few of the porn star by the same name, with clothes on.

In Bing, you'd see the same pop up as Molly did for a search of her own name. No search results displayed even though there are perfectly SFW images available.

[recraig2]

Be fair about this. It is clearly a glitch. I tried the same experiment in detail with your name. Here are the results.

Google Bing
Strict safe safe
Normal some porn no show
None free world free world

You can see that only in normal security is there that problem, but that is the real problem, since it is the default setting for anyone coming to Bing. Yikes!

[recraig2]

Be fair about this. It is clearly a glitch. I tried the same experiment in detail with your name. Here are the results.

Google Bing
Strict safe safe
Normal some porn no show
None free world free world

You can see that only in normal security is there that problem, but that is the real problem, since it is the default setting for anyone coming to Bing. Yikes!

[MrRock666]

This article is just not true. Try it for yourself, when you type Molly Wood it doesn't show almost any porn content event if you turn safe filter off.

[Alexcris96]

Yeah, well, before they had, now the fixed it.... Kind of.... I still don't get more than 2 photos of Molly...

[linuxguy2001]

What would you rather tell clueless users:

Just google it or just bing it??

Rest my case.

[LVLaserTech]

But It's Not Google has fixed this problem. On the Strict Safesearch setting, there are tons of photos of Molly Wood...including the puppy.