Slashdot Mirror
Bing More Effective Than Google?
Xiph1980 writes "Experian Hitwise claims Bing and Bing-powered search to be more effective than Google. The success rate for Bing searches in the U.S. in July was 80.04%, compared to 67.56% for Google. The market watcher defines 'success rate' as the percentage of search queries that result in a visit to a website. Searches made through sites owned by Yahoo, which farmed out search to Bing under a deal struck in 2009, were also more efficient than Google. Those searches yielded a success rate of 81.36%. The claims of Hitwise don't explain why I keep finding things like Microsoft service pack download pages better through google than through bing."
Google is my preferred search engine, but the results are noticeably geek slanted. That's perfect for me, I am a geek. However it is not what everyone wants. Bing I find does a better job giving what a non-technical user might be after. You have to remember that as a tech person, what you are interested in may not mesh with what non-tech people are interested in.
So for me, Google it is, but that may not be true for everyone.
More to the point, just because someone doesn't click, doesn't mean it wasn't a success. Google manages to answer a lot of my queries without ever needing to click a link... If I search for "define: bum nuggets" or "234GBP in EUR" I don't click any links.
If I'm looking up the name of something (via related criteria), or searching for a particular statistic, my ideal is to find it displayed in one of the website titles or excerpts without ever having to click anything.
Google also displays dictionary entries, etc. so that I can generally lookup words and get the definition right in the results.
Many times I consider a result "successful" when I don't find what I'm looking for--it was evident from the results that the object or information I wanted did not exist, so, while disappointing, Google did the job I wanted it to do.
I think a far better test is whether, after searching for something, small keyword alterations are made. Granted, many times there is a level of human refinement where people start off not knowing quite what they're looking for, but I think there is probably a much better correlation of people trying different words because they didn't find what they wanted than not-clicking anything. Basically, if people are coming away from Google and Bing equally satisfied, and Bing users click more, that means Bing is less effective and making its users do more work to get their info.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
What about searches that were a mistake and corrected.
I admit that sometimes I use google as a spell checker and never click through to a page. I'm sure other people do this.
But, but., why don't you have your Windows systems set to auto-brick^h^h^h^h^hupdate?
Seriously, I use Google to make the Microsoft VS help usable. VS help is reasonably useful for specific syntax for a supported method/function. It is utterly useless, in my experience, to decide which method/function to use in the first place, whereas Google usually has an answer located within the first 20 links.
IMO, there are serious deficiencies in Google (word1-word2, as a hyphenated string, for example), but I think, once I get the hang of custom searches associated with my gmail account, it will be usable for a wider range of queries.
If you let Bing be your search of choice you probably don't discern.
That's a baseless statement.
I have tried Bing on many occasions because I'm tired of Google's brokenness and new "features" it keeps rolling out*. Unfortunately, Bing still frequently returns things that I'm not interested in. Conversely, I rarely end up with a Google search that doesn't send me to what I want to find.
*I am completely fed up with Google's hijacking of my search terms -- Google used to predict what you wanted to search for and suggest it to you. Now it just takes you to where it thinks you want to go, and you're lucky if it'll spit out a "did you mean?" More troublesome is that frequently, where it thinks I want to go is completely ridiculous and nonsensical. Here's a real scenario: I searched for "united states weather radar". Google returned "Showing results for "unted states weather ra". Search instead for "united states weather radar". Who searches for "weather ra"?? This happens several times a day to me.
Let's ask two popular search engines the same simple question:
"Who's the black private dick who's a sex machine to all the chicks?"
Seriously. Try it on Bing, then try it on Google.
Game over.
Try it on Wolfram Alpha. Google and Bing both got shafted.
You really should try both side by side. I use Yahoo (I like the UI better) and Google and frankly lately Google doeth sucketh the big wet titty on certain searches. Reviews? you end up with a dozen shopping sites that have stuck the word "review" in their page. With Yahoo I actually find a review for what I'm looking for within the top three searches. Looking for something a little old, like say info about some part that landed in your lap? Again i find mostly eBay and shopping crap on Google, Yahoo I actually find the OEM along with drivers.
The problem with Google is two fold. One they favor their own sites whenever possible, which means they are more likely to give you crap from their sites than something useful from a potential competitor. two the SEO spammers have long since figured out Google's games, which is why shopping sites put keywords like reviews even when there isn't a review within a hundred miles of their site.
So you stick with Google if that is what makes you happy and works for you, but using both I'd say the Yahoo/Bing searches at least for the stuff i'm searching for is better. Plus competition is always a good thing and frankly the amount of data Google is gaining is more than a little scary to me. i think i'd rather have any data I generate spread out through enough competing sites a single company won't be able to tell what I had for breakfast this morning. thanks anyway.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.