Will Bing overtake Google?

[Spider]

So, Google is giving up global search and focussing on local search. Fine, Google will likely make more money doing that because each locality now becomes a target area for local search marketing. More local areas = more ads = more money for Google.

Who, if anyone, will replace Google as king of global search? Bing, maybe? Yahoo? My money, for the moment, is on Bing. Because when you search on Facebook, they give you first FB pages (obviously) then offer you "Results from the web." Which links to Bing. IOW, Bing is the search extension of Facebook.

My question, then, is -- How can I get on page 1 of Bing? What are the criteria for placing high in Bing's serps? Same as Google? I would think not, otherwise, why would there be more than one search engine? There must be some differences - what are they?

Anyone?

[jamesray50]

Are there any demographics for who uses which search engine? When I started using the computer years ago I used Yahoo, I'm not really sure why. But then eveyone was always talking about Googling this and Googling that and before I knew it Google was my seach bar. My home page is still Yahoo because I like how I can customize it but I don't use their search bar. If we knew who the was using the different search engines, then we could optimize our websites for that depending on what our demographics for our products or services our.

[Harold Mansfield]

No. Bing will not overtake Google. 13 of the top 40 websites in the world are Google's. Bing is #25.
http://www.alexa.com/topsites
If you want to know how to work Bing, the information is readily available:
Bing Toolbox (http://www.bing.com/toolbox/webmasters/)

There are plenty of demographic information, metrics, and stats for internet users all over the world. Who uses what search engine. Just about everything you can imagine.
The internet and who uses it is not a mystery, estimation (like T.V. and Radio) or guess.
It is a heavily tracked and analyzed medium with pretty accurate numbers:

Here is one such article on demographics:
http://evergreendirect.com/index.php/2010/02/search-engine-demographics-for-2010/

[Spider]

Thanks, Harold - I'll look at that tomorrow. Going to bed now.

[Harold Mansfield]

A good place for stats, studies, and metrics about the web, marketing, social media and networking, mobile devices, and all kinds of in depth analysis is:
Market research & statistics: Internet marketing, advertising & demographics - eMarketer (http://www.emarketer.com/Welcome.aspx)

The crunch some serious numbers for pretty much every aspect of the web and marketing.

[Spider]

No. Bing will not overtake Google. 13 of the top 40 websites in the world are Google's. Bing is #25.
Alexa Top 500 Global Sites (http://www.alexa.com/topsites)This is a question, not a contradiction. While Google may own 13 of 40 the world's most popular sites, I presume they are not all search. But even if they were,

Microsoft is Facebook's search fallback - Facebook is #2
Microsoft owns Windows Live - #5
Microsoft own MSN - #11
Microsoft owns Microsoft - #23
Microsoft owns Bing - #26

And maybe Microsoft owns one or two of the other top sites that I do not recognize and cannot read. (Just like Google does.)

Of course, the actual numbers of searches would be helpful, but is it not within the realms of possibility - in your mind, Harold - that Google (now to focus on local search) must give way to someone else in global search, and that the most likely contender is Microsoft by way of Bing?

If not Bing, Who? Or do you not think that Google will lose ground in the global search arena as a result of focussing on local search?

[Harold Mansfield]

Google is not giving up on global search. And you can adjust your search settings to include all U.S.
I still get the same companies in my SERP's that I used to no matter where they are, as long as they are English language sites.
When I type in "shoes" (as they so simply used in the promotional videos), I don't get any local shoe stores. It's all online stores, brands and national chains.

Whether or not "Microsoft" can beat Google is another questions since Microsoft's main product is not search. Bing is actually the first successful, functional thing that Microsoft has done that has anything to do with the web. Every other web project has been a functional disaster from Front page, Live Spaces, to IE.

Of the MS sites that you named as ranking, 3 of them are Microsoft product pages and not search portals. Of the Google sites that rank, they are all search portals.

Now a Microsoft/Facebook merger would cause some concern at the Googleplex, but the head start for so many other Google portals and services is still huge. You Tube alone is a monster that I don't see anyone approaching for much of this decade.

For Bing to beat Google, they would first have to make a dent (or at least enter) in all of the markets worldwide where Google has a strong hold.

[Spider]

Google is not giving up on global search. And you can adjust your search settings to include all U.S....
... Every other web project has been a functional disaster from Front page, Live Spaces, to IE....

Okay - Now I will contradict, but only on the periphery --

1. Global means global - like as in "the World" - all the USA is not global by about 1 in 4, I would guess. USA is local search.
2. I have no idea how Front page or Live spaces faired, but to call the most popular web browser by far a functional disaster is showing prejudice rather than reasoned comment. You may not like MSIE and you probably have good reason, but that doesn't make it a functional disaster.

Other than that, thank you for your insight. Is it your opinion, then, that trying to place better in Bing is a waste of time? I get very little traffic from Bing and not much more from Yahoo, either.

[Harold Mansfield]

Okay - Now I will contradict, but only on the periphery --

1. Global means global - like as in "the World" - all the USA is not global by about 1 in 4, I would guess.
2. I have no idea how Front page or Live spaces faired, but to call the most popular web browser by far a functional disaster is showing prejudice rather than reasoned comment. You may not like MSIE and you probably have good reason, but that doesn't make it a functional disaster.

Other than that, thank you for your insight. Is it your opinion, then, that trying to place better in Bing is a waste of time? I get very little traffic from Bing and not much more from Yahoo, either.

We never searched the world (yes it is possible though). We only search by language with a preference for sites in our geographical area or country. If you use Google.com, you don't get results from Google.in. You never did unless you specifically asked for them by changing to Google.in, searching in that language or adding location to your search. So in some respects it always has been local search in respect to the big picture being every possible result on the world wide web.

If you get companies in India, it's because they have written the sites in English, likely put them on a .com, .net, or .org, submitted them to Google.com and optimized them to come up in English language search results.

IE was the most available web browser because it is included by default with Windows computers. It wasn't popular because people preferred it. It was popular by default because people didn't know they had a choice. No one asked for it, or searched to download it. If you got a computer it was just there with no other choices.

Now that they do have a choice, it is no longer a monopoly and in my stats not even the most popular. And you already know that web designers hate it.

As for trying to place in Bing. No, I believe just the opposite. You shouldn't ignore Bing or Yahoo. They have a large amount of users. They are major search engines. What we have been doing is basically ignoring them because Google is so prevalent and just banking on the one Search Engine to bring us traffic. That's hasn't been exactly smart. Just easier.

[dojo]

Don't really think so. Bing is already for a while and many people still ignore it. I am a web designer and use the internet 16 hours/day. I have to tell you I've visited Bing ONCE, when it opened. I've ignored it as I do with Yahoo and others.

[Spider]

Ah, I see. You ignore it so everyone else ignores, eh? Is that how it works?


I don't think so!

[Harold Mansfield]

How we ( people who work on the web) use and view the web, compared to the average "Joe Blow" uses it is completely different. Plenty of people use Bing and Yahoo. There is also a large amount of people that use the default browser from their ISP (what ever of the big 3 that it's powered by), and even AOL still has some users.

The average web and computer user is oblivious. They use what ever you put in front of them or is easiest, unless otherwise recommended by a savvy family member or associate. How do you think AOL was so popular? Back in the day you couldn't raid a crack house in Brooklyn without stepping on a few AOL disks littered all over the floor. They were everywhere. And AOL is made to be simple.

You and I know that AOL is a complete resource hog and takes over your whole computer and is a pain to completely get rid of, but Joe Blow doesn't know that.

The average person is going to use what is simple, free, and easy to find. Or what they use at work.

[Spider]

And your point is, Harold?

[Harold Mansfield]

I don't know. I forgot. I wrote that a couple of days ago.

[boisemarketer]

Bing is now Microsoft's third attempt at keeping up with Google. It is very unlikely they will succeed at being the king of the ant hill.

Attempt 1
Microsoft originally had it's own nondescript search engine results pages.

Attempt 2
Then, in an attempt to advance, they created live.com and live search. If you don't quite remember this one, it is obvious why it flopped.

Attempt 2.5
A side project affectionately called Ms. Dewey (you can research it on youtube.com to see how the search was going to work).

Attempt 3
The new Bing. Looks like live, acts like live, but still smells of Microsoft.

Good luck Microsoft on your third attempt. You'll need it.

[Harold Mansfield]

Ha! I remember all of those. Ms. Dewey was kinda cool. And pretty hot too!
Live search went down faster than the Titanic. That wasn't even that long ago.

http://1stinternetmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/ms-dewey-nice.png

[jimr451]

I wouldn't underestimate Bing - MS can afford to "lose" a lot of money getting market share. Remember when they launched "xbox" into the crowded gaming space? Remember when the folks at Netscape were laughing at IE?

And keep in mind, when Google launched, we already had well established search engines like Altavista, webcrawler, lycos, ask jeeves, etc. Nobody needed another search engine, right?

I think the best long term SEO strategy is to focus on the basics - provide good, relevant content to your visitors, make your pages easily searchable, get back links, etc.

-Jim