Last month Microsoft launched its highly anticipated “decision engine”, Bing.  Prefaced by the fact that I’m a devout Googler (and slightly offended that Microsoft has offered to make decisions for me) I’ve given Bing an objective test drive.  Some first impressions and observations…

Booking Travel.
Without a doubt, Bing is great for booking travel.  It has a full reservation system, and allows users to compare multiple fares and even has a great price predictor tool.  New for a search engine? Yes, but hardly a new idea.  The reservation system and search results look and function remarkably like all the existing travel sites (it’s creepy how much it looks like Kayak.com).  The only apparent innovation here is that a search engine is serving you the results, so really Bing’s just saving you a click.

Local search.
Bing touts local search as one of its strengths and something it hopes to hang its hat on.  Bing does a great job of collecting reviews and data on each listing and rendering it in a smart way making the user’s browsing/decision making infinitely easier.  However, the tools are easily missed (I knew this functionality existed and was purposefully looking for it and it took me several minutes/searches to find).  Additionally, although Bing has all these great tools and aggregators, their local search falls short in plain old search results.  A search on “Somerville MA laundry mats” gave me 2 results in Somerville.  The first few pages of the local results included several results in surrounding towns, which are not-so-surrounding: Lowell, Natick, Groton, Wakefield, Mattapan, Framingham, Providence RI and Brookfield Wisconsin.  I did the same search on Google and pages 1-4 of the local search results were all Somerville, Cambridge and Medford - much more accurate and useful.

Shopping.
This seems to be where Bing really shines.  Microsoft offers registered users rebates on purchases (“Cashback” program), and like the local and travel searches, aggregates reviews, prices, discounts, etc. and displays them in a very straight-forward and smart matrix, making the decision process essentially brain-power free.  Great for the obsessive review-reading price-comparison shopper, may be overkill for the casual browser.

The net net on Decision Engine Tools: Bing is on to something, but it needs some refinement.  The tools execute their basic functions (quite well in the case of shopping), but are easily missed and a bit clunky to navigate around.  Their basic search engine results seem to be about par with no real innovation shining above Google and Yahoo, with an interface that’s a bit cluttered with all of the tools.

Paid Search.
Bing has made some cosmetic changes to the way the page is set up, which might prove to be advantageous for paid search advertisers: In a User Centric eye tracking report released June 8, 2009 42% of users looked Bing’s paid search ads as compared with 25% of Google users.

However, this is most likely due to the exploratory nature of using a new search tool – the Bing results page is a 3 column format with a number of new links/tools that a veteran Google/Yahoo user is not used to, and most are probably still exploring and figuring out what is where.  There is a lot to distract a user on Bing’s search results page - especially if you are running an ad in the shopping/travel/restaurant space there are a number of tools and other links that clutter the page and distract from your message, potentially decreasing the effectiveness of your ad.

Recommendation for Paid Search: Wait it out.  While Bing appears to be performing well in its first few weeks and has encouraging statistics for paid search advertisers, this is likely to change once the curiosity factor has worn off.  Bing definitely offers some great technology in the shopping/travel/restaurant categories, but I think this technology could potentially be distracting the user from the paid search ads.  Additionally, while Bing’s search results for categories outside the shopping/travel/restaurant space are adequate, there is nothing different or ground breaking about it that would potentially persuade a Google/Yahoo user to switch.  Advice to advertisers – keep your paid search ad budget in Google/Yahoo for now, and see where Bing’s search volume is 2-3 months from now after the curiosity has worn off and the multi-million $ ad campaign is no longer hitting searchers over the head daily.

P.S.   I’m curious to see how Bing’s unusual moniker will work itself into our internet vocabulary.  I would never say I “Binged” something; honestly it sounds a little dirty (also the spelling is unfortunate – not to be confused with binged, as in overindulgence).  I don’t know if it will ever be a household name if you can’t make it an appropriate verb (i.e. Tweeted, Friended, Poked, Googled).  Just saying.  Now go Bing yourself.  See? You were kind of offended by that.

Tags: Google, Paid Search, Search Engine, Yahoo

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 15th, 2009 at 1:26 pm and is filed under Paid Search, Seach Engine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.